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Metro, May 14, 2008 |
Warwick Thompson |
Puccini: Tosca, London, ROH, 12 May 2008
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Tosca
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"Camp sees everything in quotation marks", wrote
Susan Sontag. "It's not a lamp but a "lamp"; not a woman but a "woman".
Sontag might have added another example if she'd seen this enjoyable
revival. Not Tosca but "Tosca".
There's something utterly glorious in hearing Puccini's music express
passions at the utmost pitch of extremity, while the beleagured Tosca
(Micaela Carosi) and the evil Baron Scarpia (Paolo Gavanelli) act like drag
queens in a silent movie parody. Their voices are great, but their acting
has more armwaving than a semaphore convention. It creates real emotion and
fake emotion at the same time, and I can't think of a better definition of
camp than that.
Antonio Pappano, a singers' conductor if ever there was one, joins in the
fun, too. He sensitively keeps the orchestra down to allow all the voices to
perform without strain - but then he lets rip at the orchestral climaxes in
big bold, beefy splurges. Love it.
When superstar tenor Jonas Kaufmann comes on stage, however, the
quotation marks fly out the window. With his spine-tingling voice and
broodingly intense stage presence, Kaufmann is the real deal. It was no
surprise when he got a spontaneous burst of clapping after his first aria
and he received by far the loudest applause at the final curtain. That's not
"opera". It's opera. |
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