LA VOIX HUMAINE - Seattle Opera

his health, and kept her on as a maid when he
recovered. The girl’s name was Doria Manfredi;
she belonged to a respectable family in their
village of Torre del Lago and by all accounts was
a hard worker and a gentle, pleasant person.
In 1904, Elvira Gemingani’s husband died and
she was finally free to marry Puccini (for more
context see page 46). No sooner had she married
him than she became jealous and possessive. She
grew suspicious of her husband with Doria, their
pretty maid. One evening in the autumn of 1908
Elvira found the two of them talking near the
garden. She accused Doria of having an affair
with her husband, fired her, slandered her in the
town, and urged the priest to excommunicate
her. Puccini was a well-known womanizer, and
many citizens of Torre del Lago believed Elvira.
Poor Doria, unable to endure the suspicion and
scandal, took poison and died.
Doria’s family had an autopsy performed, and it
was determined that the girl had died a virgin.
They took Elvira Puccini to court for defamation
of character and won the case. Elvira would have
had to spend five months in prison,
had Puccini not paid off the family.
Although at first he wanted a separation,
eventually the composer
was reconciled with his wife.
Years later, Puccini wrote a friend, “Always before
my eyes I have the image of that poor victim
and her suffering at the hands of a powerful
woman.” And years after that, he dramatized this
encounter, between Liù and Turandot, between
Suor Angelica and her aunt. When Puccini
played the score of Suor Angelica for his sister
Iginia, who was a nun, she and her fellow sisters,
in tears, offered absolution to Puccini’s fictional,
sinful, loving, suffering Angelica.
Speight Jenkins Introduces
The Artists of La Voix Humaine
and Suor Angelica
Elle:
Nuccia Focile
Soprano (Militello, Sicily)
Recently at Seattle Opera:
Violetta, La traviata (’09)
One of the world’s best
loved sopranos, Ms.
Focile scored a great
success with La voix
humaine in London. She has sung both Mimì
and Violetta in Seattle and is a frequent artist
at all the major opera houses of the world.
Angelica:
Maria Gavrilova
Soprano (Chelyabinsk City,
Russia)
Seattle Opera debut
This Russian-born artist
has a rich Verdi or verismo
voice, scoring major
successes in Europe and
at the Metropolitan Opera.
The Princess:
Rosalind Plowright
Mezzo-Soprano (Worksop, UK)
Recently at Seattle Opera:
Klytämnestra, Elektra (’08)
Over a great career in
England, Europe and
the United States, Ms.
Plowright has always
amazed her audiences with her grasp of
the innermost meanings of the words that
she sings. Her Klytämnestra here in 2008
was astonishing in her power and curious
vulnerability.
Conductor
Gary Thor Wedow
(La Porte, IN)
Recently at Seattle Opera:
Orphée et Eurydice (’12)
Extraordinarily successful
at Seattle Opera
with Gluck, Handel and
Mozart, this brilliant conductor
has spent much of his life conducting
Italian and French opera of the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries.
Director
Bernard Uzan
(Paris, France)
Recently at Seattle Opera:
Attila (‘12)
Set & Costume Designer:
Pier Paolo Bisleri
Seattle Opera debut
Lighting Designer
Connie Yun
(East Lansing, MI)
Recently at Seattle Opera:
Orphée et Eurydice (’12)
The sets and costumes
were successful in
Trieste; Uzan has staged
some of the most interesting
productions here in recent seasons and
has a particular affinity both to verismo and
the works of Poulenc and worked with Ms. Yun
to achieve the memorable and telling lighting
in Attila.
Spotlights by Jonathan Dean, Director of Public Programs and Media and author of English captions for Seattle Opera since 1997.
2012/13 Season at Seattle Opera 33