United Kingdom Puccini, Tosca: Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra of the Royal Opera House / Andrea Battistoni (conductor). Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, 14.7.2023. (JPr)
Production:
Director – Jonathan Kent
Revival director – Peter Relton
Designer – Paul Brown
Lighting designer – Mark Henderson
Chorus director – William Spaulding
Cast:
Angelotti – Germán E. Alcántara
Sacristan – Jeremy White
Cavaradossi – Yusif Eyvazov
Tosca – Sonya Yoncheva
Baron Scarpia – Aleksei Isaev
Spoletta – Hubert Francis
Sciarrone – Jamie Woollard
Gaoler – John Morrissey
Young Shepherd – Madeleine McGhee
British director Jonathan Kent had a hard act to follow when creating a new Tosca production after four decades of the legendary Franco Zeffirelli one that had returned time and again to Covent Garden and racked up a total of 242 performances. At the time Kent commented how ‘Each generation has to reinvent these classics or they become museum pieces’. The total for Kent’s Tosca must be quite impressive by now too and there are more performances to come next season when Sonya Yoncheva, making her role debut here as Tosca, sings Puccini’s diva again.
I saw the Zeffirelli Tosca many times from 1980 (with Shirley Verrett in the title role) and Kent’s many times too since 2006 and I thought it might be interesting to go right back and see what I wrote then. Eighteen years ago, I considered it a triumph of substance over style and something I would have expected to see – magnified about three times – at the amphitheatre in Verona; especially Paul Brown’s arching staircase which would dwarf the singers there almost as much as it does at Covent Garden. Meanwhile Brown’s costumes looked back to Zeffirelli rather than bring anything new to Kent’s version. In Act I there is still a lot of clambering up a ladder to the platform where Cavaradossi is working and Yusif Eyvazov – also making a role debut – didn’t seem to enjoy the experience much. Also, there are the hasty entrances from the back of a split-level stage to get to the top of the staircase in time, followed by all the walking up and down the stairs, all undermining Tosca and Scarpia’s entrances.
I still think the first act set, used in a certain way, would have made for a wonderfully intimate setting for Act II. Singers had already been thrust to the front of the stage with their voices thrown forward by a semi-circular church set. This was even more noticeable on this occasion as I think this July matinee Tosca was the loudest I have ever heard. Not in a bad way, quite the contrary, it was thrilling stuff of the sort I have not heard at Covent Garden for some time: not that I am there as much as I used to be. In Act II there is a monumental library with a large central statue of a mythical figure with a sword. Lots of candlesticks of course, including two handily placed side-by-side on what seemed strangely, amongst this opulence, to look like a trestle-table for Scarpia to eat his meal off.
In the third act the stage opened up and there is a new vista with a long-curved wall, four execution posts across the front of the stage and we see the gaoler at his ablutions. Cavaradossi sings his reflective aria in murky light; the lighting by Mark Henderson is still not one of this production’s strengths. Too often – and especially when a star singer brings her own costumes – Tosca emerges wearing something entirely different from Act II, as if she had gone clothes shopping. Thankfully here – and helping make it more dramatically credible – Tosca was in the same elegant sliver-grey gown.
The musical values of this Tosca must have been on an all-time high for recent seasons at Covent Garden because rarely have I seen the casting for verismo-style operas with two (or three here maybe?) exceptionally talented singers at the top of their form. There is an argument to suggest the principal singers just filled their lungs and sang forte all the time when a little more subtlety wouldn’t have come amiss. But would I have wanted to have seen and heard it any other way when it was finished, no I wouldn’t, like all the others joining in the huge ovation the cast received.
Any sense that debutant – and welcome back anytime – Andrea Battistoni might have any other consideration for this opera than as a can belto one were dismissed as soon as he allowed the iron-lunged Yusif Eyvazov to hang on to his top C of ‘Vittoria! Vittoria!’ beyond all expectations. What a pleasure it was to have Eyvazov confirm how – as I have believed from several recent streamed performances – he is one of the leading dramatic tenors of this generation. ‘E lucevan le stelle’, although full-throated, was phrased beautifully with just the right amount of despair and regret. Eyvazov sung his ode about Tosca’s dark eyes with a real sense of poetry and there was great chemistry between him and Yoncheva which seemed to lead to this Cavaradossi and Tosca being more affectionate than we sometimes see, Madonna or no Madonna. Once again at the end Cavaradossi goes along with Tosca’s plans to escape without believing it’s going to succeed. Eyvazov’s acting was totally credible throughout without there being any opportunity for the winning smile he revealed at his curtain call.
Sonya Yoncheva as Tosca played the role of the traditional diva to perfection especially when enacting all her character’s insecurities and jealousy in Act I. Her ‘Vissi d’arte’ was a deeply touching prayer and sung with considerable sorrow about her plight. The stabbing was impressively staged with her vehemence (she spat out Tosca’s words ‘E avanti a lui tremava tutta Roma!’) as affecting and effective as her forgiveness for the vile seducer Scarpia as she removes the crucifix from her neck and places it on his corpse with those two candles either side of him.
Aleksei Isaev’s venal Scarpia was a black-hearted villain to the core, and he had a very dark baritone sound. Here he appeared to be a remorseless sadist whose other ‘passion’ is to force women to do his bidding and Isaev brought little of the air of civility – we know is only pretence – which some singers bring to the role. Isaev thoroughly deserved the mild pantomime-style booing he got from some in the audience! For me, he might have made just a little more of the Italian words than he did, but it was a memorable portrayal nonetheless.
An excellent ensemble saw splendid vignettes from Germán E. Alcántara’s fleeing Angelotti, Jeremy White’s fussy Sacristan, Hubert Francis’s compliant Spoletta and Madeleine McGhee’s plaintive Young Shepherd.
From the way the orchestra played for Battistoni you could never imagine they were in the middle of a long run of Toscas as they sounded fresh, vivid and exciting from the moment the conductor threw his arms in the air for the doom-laden start with its opening Scarpia chords. From then on it was as if the musicians had been let of a leash and there was all the terror and passion you expect from Puccini’s ‘shabby little shocker’.
All in all, it was an old-fashioned, grand Italian night – well afternoon! – at the opera, something I had almost given up hope of ever being at again
Jim Pritchard