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Financial Times, March 31 2009 |
Shirley Apthorp |
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Tosca, Zurich Opera
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Robert Carsen’s Tosca is a diva’s diva, Maria
Callas crossed with Marilyn Monroe and spiced with Jessica Rabbit. This new
production of Puccini’s crowd-pleaser for the Zurich Opera is theatre about
theatre, the stage showing a stage where Tosca’s dramas are acted out with
exaggerated passion.
The most interesting part, apart from the cast, was to have been Christoph
von Dohnányi on the podium, but he walked out on the production. Paolo
Carignani stepped in at the 11th hour to save the day. As his predecessor
might have, Carignani renders the orgies of kitsch on the stage less
saccharine by studiously avoiding sentimentality. He keeps the pace brisk
and the volume up, and maintains his own steely take on the score. It is
refreshing, and this is an evening that needs all the refreshment it can
get.
Carsen’s production is a one-gag show. The diva plays the diva playing the
diva, the chorus waves the same programme books that the audience holds,
Scarpia is a sadistic opera house director, and it’s all dressed prettily in
1950s evening-wear. It is achingly self-referential, and recycled to within
an inch of its life.
The all-star cast does its best to save the day. Thomas Hampson clearly
thinks the opera should really be called Scarpia and sticks doggedly to his
own tempi, regardless of what Carignani is trying to do on the podium. His
diction is exaggerated, his carriage regal. There are moments when he
manages to make us believe so completely in his character that we forget all
the annoying bits. Emily Magee gives her considerable all in the real title
role, but she never musters quite the magnetic allure that Carsen has
evidently envisaged for the part. Jonas Kaufmann is her pin-up-boy
Cavaradossi, his raffish charm the evening’s saving grace. His is a
straight-down-the-line, what-you-see-is-what-you-get tenor, and he makes you
believe every note.
The garishly artificial look of this production (design: Anthony Ward) is
clearly intentional, but the total effect is fatally unmoving. Carsen tries
too hard to tell us what we already know. |
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