Located in the UK
Located in the USA
Located in Europe
- Robert Xavier Rodríguez
Suor Isabella (1982)
- G Schirmer Inc (World)
Opera in one act.
- fl(pic).cl(bcl)/tpt.btbn/perc/hp.pf/vn.vc
- women's SSA chorus or 3 soloists
- 2 Sopranos, 2 Mezzo Sopranos
- 1 hr 10 min
- Libretto by Daniel Dibbern based on a story from “The Decameron” by Giovanni Boccaccio.
- English
Programme Note
The opera can be used as a companion to Puccini's Suor Angelica, with complementary cast, orchestra, and duration.
A group of nuns in a medieval Italian convent. The postulant, Isabella, has a hard time reconciling the earthy needs of her nature with the vows of her calling. This evokes a hilarious scene of reportage — an accounting of her bedroom activities as seen by the sisters through a keyhole, until it is revealed that the Abbess has similar problems.
- Sister Isabella (a young and beautiful nun) -- soprano
- Abbess Usimbalda (Mother Superior) -- mezzo-soprano
- Sister Ficcanaso (a prying and meddlesome nun) -- soprano
- Sister Sgridaretta (an old and punctilious nun) -- mezzo-soprano
- Three nuns (chorus with solos) -- SSA
- Isabella's lover (disguised) -- mute
A group of nuns in a medieval Italian convent. The postulant, Isabella, has a hard time reconciling the earthy needs of her nature with the vows of her calling. This evokes a hilarious scene of reportage — an accounting of her bedroom activities as seen by the sisters through a keyhole, until it is revealed that the Abbess has similar problems.
Scores
Reviews
Daniel Dibbern's English libretto does considerable justice to the subtleties of Boccaccio's richly human tale...So does the music of Rodríguez...A famous saltarello appears as a recurring theme, distorted in all manner of ingenious ways...His 70-minute opera views the medieval world through 20th-century eyes and ears, and does so colorfully, engagingly, and not too harshly.
Suor Isabella is a romp about a group of nuns in a Medieval Italian convent whose earthly 'glorias' occasionally drown out their spiritual 'amens'...Isabella, it seems, has a hard time reconciling the earthly needs of her nature with the vows of her calling, as she relates in her charming aria. This evokes a hilarious scene of reportage of her bedroom activities as seen by the sisters through a keyhole until it transpires that Mother Superior has similar problems. All are resolved with tolerant cynicism of a truly viable faith...It is written tightly, is full of action and genuinely funny.