(h/t: Opera Chic) Woody Allen is rehearsing Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi for Los Angelas Opera. Evidently, Mark Stern, LA Opera Chairman and CEO, and friend of Allen’s, asked him a number of times, begged, perhaps, to direct an opera. So, Allen reluctantly accepts his friend’s invitation although he’s concerned about disappointing everybody, “which I’m sure I will”. Still he agreed and since, according to Allen,
“these things are planned years in advance” … “I’ll be dead before it happens. I’m 72. I’m never going to make it to the opera.”
(never say never).
Schicci is the third act of Puccini’s Il Trittico, a collection of three one-act operas, and a comedy, which may be the saving grace for Allen. (or maybe not). Billy Friedkin, who directed The French Connection and The Exorcist, is no stranger to opera, having directed Schicci for Washington National Opera in 2006, will direct the first two acts, Il tabarro and Suor Angelica.
So it shouldn’t be a total loss.
(maybe).
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