|
|
|
|
|
The Times, May 14, 2008 |
Hilary Finch |
Puccini: Tosca, London, ROH, 12 May 2008
|
Tosca at Covent Garden
|
|
|
There's a new and strange harmony - a
Recondita armonia - between art and life, between the Madonna and the
beloved on stage here: Cavaradossi's first outpouring hasn't seemed so
resonant for a long time at the Royal Opera, in this second revival of
Jonathan Kent's 2006 Tosca.
The new Cavaradossi is the German tenor Jonas Kaufmann, and not for some
time have I heard such a musically intelligent and vocally assured
performance. Puccini's virile and tender music comes fresh from the score,
cleansed of cliché. Kaufmann's tenor is in its prime, and voice and body are
lithe and purposeful. His sudden outbursts of revolutionary fervour are as
thrilling as his powerful shift from dream to reality in his final E lucevan
le stelle.
Kent's boldly designed production is wearing well, and Stephen Barlow has
re-energised this revival. Detail is compelling, from every nervous movement
of Enrico Fissore's Sacristan, to the serpentine servility of Hubert
Francis's Spoletta. And this is a deeply Italian Tosca: Puccini's musical
language courses passionately through the blood of Antonio Pappano, whose
taut conducting embodies the political unrest within the score, and also
emphasises its fierce modernism. We flinch from its dissonances, just as we
are drawn into the horror of Paolo Gavanelli's Scarpia.
No caricature of embittered evil here. This Scarpia is a lumbering brute,
padding across the stage. His voice has a chillingly gentle underside which
he can suddenly heat and recharge into a snarl in a change of rhythm or
inflection. Gavanelli's Scarpia has a lot of the Iago in him too: his
tormenting of Tosca strikes vibrant chords with his counterpart in Verdi's
Otello.
And an Italian Tosca, too. Micaela Carosi, making her Royal Opera debut, may
lack a certain vulnerability within her burnished soprano. But this is a
noble, full-hearted diva of considerable power. No hint of any Callas-like
subconscious attraction to Scarpia here: the integrity of this Tosca brings
out the dark, resinous tints in Carosi's voice, and contributes powerfully
to the stature of this revival. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|