From this point on, the show is entirely Angelica’s, with whatever assistance she can get from the production by way of making the conclusion other than hilarious or embarrassing. Kristine Opolais’ voice has suffered since her run as the Puccini Manon just 2 seasons ago. The tone was viscous, the vowels (therefore, the words) occluded throughout most of her range. She worked conscientiously through the part, seemingly aware of the necessary effects without being able to release them. At the close, she lowered herself backward onto the cloister ground with remarkable upper-body control for one poisoned, whereupon her son appeared in the chapel doorway amid clouds of stage steam belching from a vent beside him, suggesting that the tyke had actually been remanded to the less desirable afterlife destination. His short-pants outfit was the only sure indication of the opera’s updating (to 1938), thereby reminding us that however literally (or not) one tries to interpret its ending, Suor Angelica is far more plausibly situated in its designated period—the late 1600s, still in the Age of Miracles.

The first half of the piece poses difficulties like those of the opening scene of La Fanciulla del West—twenty-five minutes or so of little episodic events whose importance is hard to establish, among characters whose identities are hard to specify, with the added burden that whereas in Fanciulla the miners’ doings at least generate theatrical energy, in Suor Angelica the prevailing mood is contained, the colors in delicate pastels. At this performance the sequence was done in by the above-noted maundering of pit and podium; a parallel lack of definition in staging and characterization, not helped by the usual stage-nun quotient of scampering and jumping up and down; and by the fact that in a scene whose small dramatic points are repeatedly dependent on fair projective strength in the lower ranges of female voices, that is what was lacking in nearly all the singers cast, whatever their other virtues. As late as the revival of 2009, these parts were given to voices not necessarily of better overall quality (several of these are quite pretty), but of enough lower-octave  presence to ensure audible conversation. The deficiency is obvious and there’s no dearth of alternatives. One wonders, not for the first time, what sort of thinking goes on in the casting department.

In Il Tabarro, there were elements that seemed as if they could have been parts of a solid performance. Amber Wagner has an ample soprano that satisfied at least the basic vocal and musical demands of Senta two seasons back—which is not saying nothing—and she made some good sounds in this role as well. She didn’t catch much of Giorgietta’s emotional life in her voice, though, and her sincere efforts at acting were not sufficiently developed to overcome her physical unsuitability for veristic roles like this. George Gagnidze’s secure,  medium-gage baritone might make for a presentable Michele were his expressive range (of inflectional color, expansion of phrase, dramatic use of dynamics) either instinctively greater or given closer conductorial guidance. As it was, he gave us only a competent run-through, neither the ache nor the menace in the character really coming through. Tony Stevenson and Maurizio Muraro made for a perfectly reasonable Tinca/Talpa parlay, but had to simply run their bits in a musical and dramatic vacuum.