Jonathan Kent’s magnificent production of Tosca dates back to 2006 when the Welsh bass-baritone Bryn Terfel made an outstanding impression playing the evil police chief Scarpia. Now 59 years old, Terfel’s voice is not as strong as it used to be, but his acting in this role is still outstanding. He has honed his every gesture to bring out the sadism, the lust and the frightening power of the role. The strength of his singing may have diminished to the extent that his voice was occasionally drowned by the other singers and the orchestra, but his presence on the stage still dominated.
The rest of the cast were excellent in different ways. Welsh-Ukrainian soprano Natalya Romaniw sang the part of Tosca beautifully. The role demands a show of both strength and vulnerability and Romaniw moved between these extremes with impressive ease. Her leap to her death at the end, however, looked rather tentative and definitely lacked the dramatic appeal of the glorious backflip of Angel Blue on this production’s last outing at the ROH in July.
Tosca’s lover, Mario Cavaradossi, was splendidly sung by South Korean Seokjong Baek, whose tenor voice packs rare power. His acting, however, sometimes looked a little wooden, singing almost as though giving a recital rather than playing a dramatic role. The relationship between Tosca and Cavaradossi consequently looked less tender than usual.
The combination of an occasionally under-powered Scarpia and a high volume Cavaradossi brought some problems of balance between the singers and between singers and orchestra. The South Korean conductor Eun Sun Kim generally did well to bring out the best in both the music and the singing, but occasionally the orchestra seemed a little too loud.
With the three main roles so dominating the opera, the other parts are often almost lost, but on this occasion Ossian Huskinson as escaped political prisoner Angelotti, Maurizio Muraro as the church Sacristan and Aled Hall as Scarpia’s lackey Spoletta all put in excellent performances in support of the stars.
Paul Brown’s impressively designed sets are perfectly judged to match the glory of the opera. Even Puccini himself would have been impressed: a glorious production of a great opera.
Tosca is playing at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden until 13 December.
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