Suor Angelica – 'Senza mamma' (Ermonela Jaho, The Royal Opera)

Ermonela Jaho as the title role sings 'Senza mamma' from Suor Angelica, the second in Puccini's trio of operas Il trittico. Find out more at http://www.roh.org.uk/productions/suo...

The second installment in Giacomo Puccini’s triptych of operas, Il trittico, is characterized by music of ethereal and spiritual beauty, in contrast to the dark melodrama of Il tabarro and the gutsy comedy of Gianni Schicchi. It was first performed in 1918 at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, as part of the first complete performance of Il trittico, one month after the end of World War I.

Director Richard Jones sets Angelica’s story in a mid-20th-century children’s hospital, where the sisters tend to their young patients on a busy ward – a painful reminder of Angelica’s own child. Suor Angelica contains some of Puccini’s most poignant music, including Angelica’s aria ‘Senza mamma’, in which she expresses her grief after receiving the devastating news that her son, whom she has not seen since being imprisoned by her family in a convent, has died.