Gianni Schicchi: synopsis, roles, arias and O mio babbino caro

Gianni Schicchi is Puccini’s first setting of a comic text, and it proved to be the last opera he completed¹. The comedy runs on a legal trick, a dead man and a dowry¹. Critic Ernest Newman holds that the music keeps us perpetually suspended between the comic and the tragic¹. This page gives the cast, the story, the numbers worth knowing and the history; it is one of many guides in the operas section.

At a glance

Gianni Schicchi is a comic opera in one act with an Italian libretto by Giovacchino Forzano, composed in 1917-18¹. The libretto is based on an incident mentioned in Dante’s Divine Comedy¹. The work is the third and final part of Puccini’s Il trittico¹. It has since become the most-performed part of the triptych¹.

It is a dark satire based on a real story mentioned in Dante’s Inferno, as the San Diego Opera program page frames it². The story takes place in Florence in 1299¹. The first draft was completed on 20 April 1918¹. The opera has no chorus³.

Gianni Schicchi is now more frequently staged either alone or with short operas by other composers, although it continues to be performed with one or both of the other trittico operas¹. The score combines Puccini’s modern style of harmonic dissonance with lyrical passages reminiscent of Rossini¹.

Roles and voice types

Gianni Schicchi has no chorus, so every singer on stage is a named character³. The table gives the voice types, the ages in the role list and the cast of the world premiere on 14 December 1918, with Roberto Moranzoni conducting¹.

Betto is poor and shabbily dressed, and Simone is a former mayor of Fucecchio¹. Pinellino and Guccio are the two witnesses to the signing of the will³.

The title role is traditionally a baritone role². In the 1950s and 1960s Tito Gobbi was particularly prominent in it¹. Bryn Terfel sang the title role in the 2007 Royal Opera House production¹. In 2023 mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe performed the baritone title role at San Diego Opera, becoming the first woman to do so¹.

At the Rome premiere in 1919 the part of Rinuccio was sung by the Canadian tenor Edward Johnson¹. The American soprano Marie Tiffany was the only singer to appear in all three operas of Il trittico at the New York premiere, as one of the lovers in Il tabarro, a lay sister in Suor Angelica and Nella in Gianni Schicchi¹.

Synopsis

The story takes place in Florence in 1299¹. The opening scene shows the bed-chamber of Buoso Donati, a wealthy citizen of Florence³. As Buoso Donati lies dead in his curtained four-poster bed, his relatives gather round to mourn his passing¹. The comic opera begins with the death of the wealthy Florentine and his distraught family².

The will

The mourning has a comic edge from the first bars. Betto’s lament for his brother-in-law is interrupted when Gherardino knocks over a chair³. Betto mentions a rumor he has heard that Buoso has left everything to a monastery¹. The rumor comes from Signa, and the local monks, it goes, will think it is Christmas³. The others turn to Simone, the oldest, because he was once the mayor of Fucecchio³.

A frantic search for the will begins⁴. When the search resumes, Betto pockets the knife and scissors³. It is Rinuccio who finds the will³. He asks Zita to allow him to marry Lauretta, daughter of Gianni Schicchi, a newcomer to Florence¹. If Zita agrees, the wedding can take place on Calendimaggio, the first day of May³. Rinuccio fervently hopes for his inheritance, because he is relying on it to marry Lauretta³.

Zita rips off the ribbon, and a second parchment is found: the will³. The relatives’ worst fears are realized: Buoso has indeed bequeathed his fortune to the monastery¹. The PBS and Wikipedia synopses name a monastery^1,4; the San Diego Opera synopsis says the church². Simone, the oldest present and a former mayor of Fucecchio, can offer no help¹.

Rinuccio, Lauretta and Schicchi

Rinuccio suggests that Lauretta’s father, Gianni Schicchi, can help them⁴. Rinuccio calls Schicchi clever and astute, and says he knows every legal trick there is³. Schicchi is a shrewd, self-made man⁴. The young man compares Florence to a tree in full flower, and he calls the peasant-turned-businessman a new breed that will invigorate it⁴. The aria is Avete torto, and it names Arnolfo with his magnificent tower, the painter Giotto and the merchant Medici^1,3.

Schicchi arrives with Lauretta, and he is disgusted by the hypocrisy and avarice of the aristocratic family⁴. He decides to stay when Lauretta proclaims her intention to marry Rinuccio⁴. Lauretta pleads with him in one of the most beloved Puccini arias³. If she cannot have him, she says, she will go to the Ponte Vecchio and throw herself into the river Arno³. Her plea moves Schicchi, and he agrees to look at the will¹.

He reads the will twice and finds nothing can be done¹. Lauretta and Rinuccio bid farewell to their May-day wedding³. Then an idea occurs to him¹. Schicchi sends his daughter outside so that she will be innocent of what is to follow¹. She is told to wait on the terrace and feed the birds³.

The impersonation

Schicchi first establishes that no one other than those present knows that Buoso is dead¹. He tells Marco and Gherardo to take the body into the adjoining room³. The doctor, Spinelloccio, arrives at the door³. Schicchi conceals himself behind the bed curtains, mimics Buoso’s voice and declares that he is feeling better¹. He greets the doctor, says he has risen from the dead but needs to rest, and asks him to come back that evening³. The doctor boasts that no patient of his has ever died, and all credit must go to the medical school at Bologna³. Boasting that he has never lost a patient, Spinelloccio departs¹.

Schicchi then unveils his plan in the aria Si corre dal notaio¹. Whoever goes to the notary is to tell him to hurry to Buoso Donati’s house³. The aria climbs until the whole orchestra is playing very loud and Schicchi sings a high G³.

All are delighted with the scheme, and they importune Schicchi with requests for Buoso’s possessions¹. They agree on the farms first: Simone wants the farm at Fucecchio, Zita wants Figline, Betto asks for Prato and Gherardo wants the lands at Empoli³. The most treasured bequests are the mule, the house and the mills at Signa¹. Zita reminds them that those three are not among the farms³.

A church bell tolls off stage, and everyone fears that the news of Buoso’s death has emerged^1,3. It turns out to toll for someone else: a military accident in the Utah Symphony & Opera program note, a neighbor’s Moorish servant in the Wikipedia synopsis^1,3. The company source ranks higher, so the military accident is the version given here³. The relatives agree to leave the disposition of the mule, the house and the mills to Schicchi, though each, in turn, offers him a bribe¹. Zita offers 30 florins and Simone a hundred³.

The women help him to change into Buoso’s clothes as they sing the lyrical trio Spogliati, bambolino¹. Schicchi warns the relatives that falsifying a will is punished by amputation of one hand and then exile from Florence¹. The relatives are warned that they face the same punishment as accessories to a fraud⁴.

The new will

The notary arrives, and Schicchi starts to dictate the new will, declaring any prior will null and void¹. He keeps the funeral modest, at no more than 2 florins, and leaves 5 lire to the Friars Minor³. The farms go to the relatives as agreed: Fucecchio to Simone, Figline to Zita, Prato to Betto, Empoli to Nella and Gherardo, Quintole to Ciesca and Marco³. That leaves the mule, the house and the mills³.

In the will the mule, which cost 300 florins and is the best in Tuscany, goes to Schicchi’s friend Gianni Schicchi, which is to say Schicchi himself³. The new will leaves the house they are all in, with the rest, to his good friend Gianni Schicchi⁴. Incredulous, the family can do nothing while the lawyer is present¹. Zita is ordered to pay 20 florins to the witnesses and a hundred to the notary³.

The ending

When the notary leaves, the family’s outrage turns to a frenzy of looting as Schicchi chases them out of what is now his house¹. They take the linen, the silver and as much else as they can carry³. The balcony windows open to show Florence bathed in sunshine³.

Lauretta and Rinuccio sing a love duet, now that Schicchi can provide a dowry¹. Although the poet Dante has condemned him to Hell for this trick, Schicchi asks the audience to forgive him in light of extenuating circumstances¹. He turns to the audience and pleads that he not be judged too harshly².

The famous arias and numbers

The score is through-composed, but within the general structure of the opera there are several identifiable numbers¹. They are four solos given to the three main characters, a trio and a brief love duet¹. Titles only are listed here; the libretto is still in copyright, so no lines are quoted.

Rinuccio’s Avete torto is also where the best-known theme of the opera is introduced: the theme associated with Lauretta appears in the second part of this aria¹. The theme is briefly played on clarinet and violin as Lauretta enters with Schicchi, before its full expression in O mio babbino caro¹. Schicchi’s own personal motif is a jaunty four-note phrase first sung by Rinuccio¹.

Only Lauretta’s O mio babbino caro is separable from its context and can be sung as a concert piece¹. The trio for three female voices is, in the judgment of Charles Osborne, equal to anything in Falstaff¹.

Schicchi’s Si corre dal notaio is a showpiece for the singer, and the orchestra piles on instrument after instrument beneath his high G³. The breathless summons to the notary is typical operatic hurry-up music³.

O mio babbino caro

O mio babbino caro is one of Puccini’s best-known arias and one of the most popular in opera¹. The aria is separable from its context and can be sung as a concert piece¹. In context, Lauretta pleads with her father in what is one of the most beloved Puccini arias³. The Ponte Vecchio and the Arno carry the threat: if she cannot have Rinuccio, she will throw herself into the river³.

The aria’s position at the turning point of the action is precisely calculated to provide a welcome moment of lyrical repose, as Julian Budden judges¹. Budden dismisses the view that the aria, at the midpoint of the opera, was a concession to popular taste¹. At the New York premiere it was repeated through popular insistence, despite a public notice forbidding encores¹. W.J. Henderson called it the pearl of the evening¹. Frances Alda recorded it in 1919¹.

The title means, in our gloss, “Oh, my dear daddy”.

The real Schicchi and Dante

Gianni Schicchi de’ Cavalcanti was a 13th-century Italian knight¹. In the Inferno, Dante visits the Circle of Impersonators and sees a man savagely attacking another¹. Schicchi is condemned to Hell for impersonating Buoso Donati and making Donati’s will highly favorable to Schicchi¹. Dante’s verses, and the opera, are based on an actual incident that took place in 13th century Florence¹.

The plot used in the opera derives from an 1866 edition of The Divine Comedy by the philologist Pietro Fanfani¹. In that commentary, Buoso wishes to make a will but is put off doing so by his son, Simone¹. Simone calls on Schicchi for advice, and Schicchi has the idea of impersonating Buoso and making a new will¹. Schicchi makes the bequests conditional on Simone’s distributing the estate within 15 days; otherwise everything will go to charity¹.

Dante had several reasons for his harsh treatment of Schicchi¹. His wife, Gemma, was of the Donati family¹. He despised members of the peasant class such as Schicchi¹.

The opera ends on that Hell: Dante has condemned Schicchi for the trick, so his last plea is to the audience¹.

Commedia dell’arte

Puccini and Forzano borrowed heavily from the commedia dell’arte tradition in Gianni Schicchi, according to Burton Fisher¹. Schicchi himself recalls the roguish Harlequin¹. His daughter Lauretta, whose romance is nearly foiled by Buoso’s relatives, resembles Columbina¹. Simone is drawn from Pantaloon, while the poverty-stricken Betto recalls the buffoonish valet Zanni¹. Doctor Spinelloccio recalls the classic doctor from the commedia dell’arte, Balanzone, even to his Bolognese origin¹.

On stage, with the commedia dell’arte references, a humorous atmosphere is established from the very beginning¹. Several critics have likened Gianni Schicchi to Verdi’s Falstaff, as both are masterpieces of operatic comedy from composers more usually associated with tragedy¹. Both composers chose a baritone for the principal role, set the tenor-soprano love story against family opposition to the marriage, and constructed a hoax that permits the happy ending¹.

From one-act ideas to Il trittico

The one-act opera genre had become increasingly popular in Italy following the 1890 competition sponsored by the publisher Edoardo Sonzogno for the best such work, which was won by the young Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana¹. Puccini had long considered writing a set of one-act operas to be performed together in a single evening, but a lack of suitable subjects and opposition from his publisher led him to put the project aside repeatedly¹. He first considered three works by the French dramatist Alphonse Daudet as a trilogy of one-act operas¹. In March 1907 he proposed three one-act operas based on scenes from stories by the Russian novelist Maxim Gorky¹.

His publisher, Giulio Ricordi, was firmly opposed to such a project, convinced that it would be expensive to cast and produce¹. By November 1916 Puccini had completed the tragic element, which became Il tabarro¹. By then the plan had grown to include a solemn, religious, all-female opera, Suor Angelica¹. Finally, the librettist Giovacchino Forzano presented the composer with two works of his own, which became Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi¹. The latter would be Puccini’s first setting of a comic text¹.

Puccini was at first less than enthusiastic about the idea for this comic opera¹. Florence as a setting did not appeal to him¹. The religious-themed opera was completed in September 1917, and Puccini turned his full attention to Gianni Schicchi¹. The war news and the 1918 influenza pandemic, in which Puccini lost a sister, distracted him from his work¹. The first draft was completed on 20 April 1918, and he continued to refine and orchestrate it through the summer of 1918¹. Gianni Schicchi proved to be the last opera completed by Puccini¹.

With the trilogy complete, Puccini had to decide on a place for the premiere. He refused an offer from Buenos Aires¹. He finally agreed that the premiere could take place at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, without his being there, on the basis of performing instructions which he supplied to the conductor¹.

The three one-acts are a study in contrast. Il tabarro is a one-act tragedy, Suor Angelica a solemn, religious, all-female opera, and Gianni Schicchi a comedy that completes the triptych with a further contrast of mood¹. The Met’s synopsis of Suor Angelica sets the story in a convent, where a nun waits seven years for word from her family⁴.

Premiere and first stagings

Gianni Schicchi was first performed at the Metropolitan Opera on 14 December 1918, as the final part of Il trittico¹. The house was sold out¹. It showed polite enthusiasm for Il tabarro and Suor Angelica, while Gianni Schicchi was received with uproarious delight, in the words of the New-York Tribune’s critic¹. The undoubted pearl of the evening, W.J. Henderson wrote, was Lauretta’s aria, which was repeated through popular insistence despite a public notice forbidding encores¹. Il trittico was performed at the Met’s Philadelphia opera house on 17 December with the same cast¹.

At the time, Il trittico was in rehearsal in Rome in preparation for an Italian premiere at the Teatro Costanzi¹. The Italian premiere, more important to Puccini than the New York world premiere, took place on 11 January 1919¹. Gianni Schicchi was again warmly received, more so than the first two operas of Il trittico¹. Arturo Toscanini, in the audience, was disgusted by the verismo of Il tabarro and left after the first curtain¹. Edward Johnson later recalled that, at the composer’s request, he had dragged a mock-reluctant Puccini from the wings to acknowledge the house’s applause¹.

The London premiere at Covent Garden took place on 18 June 1920, with King George V and Queen Mary present¹. Puccini hoped that Sir Thomas Beecham would conduct, but he declined and Gaetano Bavagnoli conducted¹. Once again, only Gianni Schicchi was received with real warmth¹. In October 1920 the Vienna State Opera produced Il trittico in German¹.

In the years after the premiere Puccini made modifications to the three operas, but Gianni Schicchi required few¹. The principal change was to Rinuccio’s arioso, Avete torto, which was set in a higher pitch to take better advantage of the tenor voice¹.

The three operas were not always kept together. By 1920 Puccini was facing pressure to allow Il trittico to be broken up, and he had given his reluctant consent to separate performances¹. At Covent Garden the director, Henry V. Higgins, removed Suor Angelica, feeling that the audience disliked it¹. He then decided to remove Il tabarro and stage Gianni Schicchi together with a Russian ballet presentation¹. Puccini retorted that this was a real betrayal, but in the end he gave in and permitted the performance¹. He remained convinced that his original conception was being brutally torn to pieces¹. The Metropolitan Opera joined in the dismemberment: after 1920 it would not again present the three operas together until 1975¹.

Later productions

Gianni Schicchi returned to the Met in 1926, after Puccini’s death, mated to Leoncavallo’s two-act Pagliacci¹. The 1926 production was by Wilhelm von Wymetal, with sets by Joseph Novak¹. In 1974 the Met gave the opera its first new production since 1926¹. The 1975 performance featured Renata Scotto as Lauretta¹. When the production was revived again in 1989, Teresa Stratas sang the trittico hat-trick¹.

Tito Gobbi first sang the role of Schicchi in the Rome production in 1951¹. In 1969 he directed and sang in the production at the Teatro Comunale di Firenze, and later that year he performed in and directed the same version at the August 1969 Edinburgh Festival¹.

Glyndebourne Festival Opera put on a 2004 double bill of Gianni Schicchi and Rachmaninoff’s The Miserly Knight¹. Reviewer Edward Seckerson called the pairing flip sides of the same coin and found the Schicchi a triumph of ensemble directing and playing¹.

Woody Allen made his operatic directing debut in Gianni Schicchi in Los Angeles, with Sir Thomas Allen, Laura Tatulescu and Saimir Pirgu in the cast¹. In Allen’s 2008 staging, set in a crowded tenement, Schicchi is stabbed by Zita as he addresses the audience¹. The Los Angeles Times named it one of the top ten moments in classical music for 2008¹. A 2015 performance starring Placido Domingo in the title role was filmed for television in association with various international broadcasters¹.

The 2007 Royal Opera House production by Richard Jones updated the action to a shabby 1940s Italy, with Bryn Terfel in the title role¹. In the 2009 revival Schicchi was sung by Thomas Allen, while Gwynne Howell, as Simone, celebrated 40 years with the Royal Opera¹.

San Diego Opera cast mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe in the title role, traditionally sung by a baritone, for an opera first². Yves Abel conducted and Kyle Lang directed².

Critical reception

In reviewing the New York premiere, the critics greeted Gianni Schicchi warmly, and most reviewers found it the best of the three operas¹. The New York Times reviewer James Huneker called the opera a rollicking, madcap scherzo¹. Huneker praised De Luca as a most engaging rascal, fit for a minor niche in Moliere’s gallery¹.

Rome’s critics gave Il trittico as a whole a warmer reception, but still saw Gianni Schicchi as the best of the three¹. Alberto Gasco of La tribuna wrote that while many critics were waiting for the first two operas with their fists drawn, Gianni Schicchi disarmed these hired assassins with a single glance¹.

Modern productions, including those in an updated context, have been generally well received¹. The New York Times gave a positive review to the Woody Allen 2008 production¹. The Los Angeles Times critic Mark Swed praised its hilarious wit and engaging musicality¹.

The score

The orchestra for Puccini’s only comedy is a standard one³. The 1918 Ricordi edition calls for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes and cor anglais, among other forces¹. The full list runs to piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, bass trombone, timpani, percussion, celesta, harp and strings, with a low church bell off stage³. A reduced arrangement by the Argentine conductor and composer Ettore Panizza was published in 1954¹.

The opening motif is a rapid burst of rhythmic music¹. In the 7th measure Puccini adds the direction tumultuoso³. It quickly transforms into a mock-solemn dirge depicting the hypocritical grief of the Donati relatives¹. A funereal drum is heard and continues throughout the opening scene³. This juxtaposition of the humorous and the solemn runs through the opera¹.

Other motifs follow. The theme of the lovers Rinuccio and Lauretta is introduced in Rinuccio’s first solo, Salvati! Salvati!¹. A short, formal woodwind statement represents Donati’s will¹. Rinuccio sings the name Gianni Schicchi to a jaunty four-note phrase that becomes Schicchi’s personal motif¹. The best-known theme, that of Lauretta, is introduced in the second part of Avete torto¹.

The music itself is of the 20th century: Edward Greenfield refers to its dissonant modernity, with clashing chords suggesting that Puccini was beginning to think in bi-tonal terms¹. Alongside these dissonant passages are others that Julian Budden calls bland, schoolroom diatonism¹. With the fast-moving pace of the work, the set pieces are given a simpler melodic structure than those in the other two parts of the triptych¹. The doctor’s dissonant harmonies contrast sharply with the scena music for Schicchi and mark Spinelloccio as an outsider to the action¹.

Early in Puccini’s career, Verdi judged that the symphonic element dominates in him¹. Later analysts have compared Gianni Schicchi to the final presto movement of a three-movement symphony¹. Grout judged Puccini’s comic skill to be seen at its most spontaneous in this opera, incorporating smoothly all the characteristic harmonic devices of his later period¹.

Recordings

Gianni Schicchi was not available as a recording until after the Second World War, a neglect a Gramophone reviewer called extraordinary¹. One of the earliest recordings, a Turin Radio broadcast of 1950 conducted by Alfredo Simonetto, drew praise for its lively presentation¹. The critic Philip Hope-Wallace found it too rough a piece of recording to be warmly recommended¹.

The 1958 recording under Gabriele Santini, with a cast including Tito Gobbi and Victoria de los Angeles, was still being discussed nearly 50 years later as the classic performance¹. Gobbi’s singing in it is at a standard rarely equalled¹. The complete Trittico with the London Symphony Orchestra under Antonio Pappano, recorded in 1998, is generally recommended¹.

Language and diction notes

The libretto is in Italian, so the rules in Italian diction for singers apply throughout¹. The title is pronounced [ˈdʒanni ˈskikki]¹. Because the opera has no chorus, every line belongs to a named character³.

The story plays in Florence¹. The Utah Symphony & Opera program note and the PBS synopsis both cover the will scene, the florin amounts and the house in the bequest^3,4.

Where to go next

Two more Puccini operas to study next are Tosca and Turandot.