Summary: "Puccini: Il Tabarro (Trittico, Part 1)" Giorgetta, the young wife of the barge-owner Michele, is having an affair with the deckhand Luigi. At the end of a day’s work, she offers wine to him and the two other stevedores, Tinca and Talpa. They begin a playful dance, which is interrupted by Michele. Giorgetta asks him why he seems so troubled, but he remains silent. Talpa’s wife, Frugola, arrives to take him home. When Tinca claims he loves nothing more than to drink, Luigi suddenly blurts out that drink seems to be the only way to cope with their bleak existence (“Hai ben ragione”). Frugola dreams of a little house in the country and Giorgetta wishes she could leave the barge for a happier life. She and Luigi consider the beauty of the city (Duet: “È ben altro il mio sogno”). Michele appears from the cabin and Luigi, who can’t bear to see Giorgetta with her husband, asks to be left in Rouen on the next trip out. Michele dissuades him, arguing that there will be no work there. Giorgetta and Luigi arrange to meet later that evening; she will light a match once Michele has gone to sleep. Luigi goes off and Michele again comes on deck. He tries to evoke Giorgetta’s past love for him by recalling happier days before the death of their infant child a year earlier, but she rejects him. Alone, Michele expresses his suspicions that she is in love with another man (“Nulla! Silenzio!”). He settles down on the deck and lights his pipe. Seeing the lit match from a distance, Luigi rushes on board believing it is Giorgetta’s signal. Michele grabs him and forces him to confess his love for Giorgetta, then strangles him and conceals the body under his cloak. Giorgetta reappears on deck to apologize to Michele, who throws open his cloak exposing Luigi’s dead body.Details at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/02IlTabarro [First time on our podcasting channel]
