Tosca (Royal Opera House)
Verdict: Redeemed by a great diva
She came, she sang, she conquered. Having racked up precisely 70 years of Toscas, I can report that Anna Netrebko’s rendition of the great aria ‘Vissi d’arte’ was among the finest I have heard – and the Russian soprano’s best possible riposte to the protesters waving Ukrainian flags outside the ROH.
Inside the auditorium, she had a triumph. At 54 there is a suggestion of the gusty to her big tone but she sings with intensity and variety; and the role of Tosca, a prima donna, fits naturally on a singer who was born to raise the rafters of our great opera houses. A pity about the naff production, of which more anon.
Il Tenore di Tunbridge Wells, Freddie De Tommaso, as her lover Mario, has a healthy pair of lungs, a fact he insists on bringing to our attention. He bellowed his way through all three acts, not even letting up for ‘E lucevan le stelle’. If he wants a long career he must husband his resources better.
Drowning out the protests: Outside Covent Garden, anti-Putin campaigners waved Ukrainian flags. Inside, Russian soprano Anna Netrebko delivered a tour de force as Tosa
Gerald Finley is one of the foremost baritones of our day but the production reduces his portrayal of the sinister police chief Baron Scarpia to the status of a stockbroker and London commuter, with no suggestion of the aristocrat.
Even the comically characterised Sacristan of Alessandro Corbelli is lost among the chaos of Act 1, in which the church looks as if it has been bombed – yet Mario Cavaradossi is still trying to paint his Mary Magdalene.
One of the most atmospheric operas is robbed of all atmosphere. The action of Tosca is tied to a very specific place and time, Rome in the days before, during and after the Battle of Marengo. The ROH has exchanged an excellent production for an ill-conceived updating by Oliver Mears.
Simon Lima Holdsworth’s set for the notorious Act 2 is a bland, boring City office in which Scarpia has not even a desk or table on which to eat his dinner (which looks like a Chinese takeaway) or write out Tosca’s safe-conduct pass.
Super Mario: Netrebko with Freddie De Tommaso, who plays Tosca’s lover Mario Cavaradossi
Scary Scarpia: Gerald Finley, as the sinister police chief obsessed with Tosca (Anna Netrebko), looks more like a stockbroker than a man full of menace in this ill-conceived updating
Act 3 is shrunk to a sort of box. We are first treated to a gratuitously violent close-up killing, then later Cavaradossi’s supposedly mock execution is so near to where Tosca is standing that she could never be taken in by it.
Thank goodness for the magnificent conducting of the new music director, Jakub Hrusa: he and the orchestra and chorus give Netrebko a first-rate framework for her imperious Tosca. I should also mention the fine offstage shepherd boy (Raphy Laming) at the start of Act 3.
Tosca continues at the Royal Opera House until October 11. Anna Netrebko’s last performance is Sunday, September 21. Â
