Subtle touches in traditional Tosca
As one of the perennials of the opera repertoire, Tosca reminds us anew of some telling detail with every responsible performance. Saturday at Place des Arts, we could appreciate the hypocrisy as well as the villainy of Scarpia, who for a moment or two distracts even the upright actress of the title with his suave manner.
It took an authoritative blend of focused tone and polished phrasing from the Canadian baritone Gregory Dahl, an Opéra de Montréal regular, to convey this nuance in the second act before the Roman chief of police makes his brutal intentions clear. Tosca responds, of course, with Vissi d’arte, a famous showstopper, but also a heartfelt testimonial threaded seamlessly into the drama as rendered in rich voice by the American soprano Melody Moore-Wagner.
Both of these principals acted well in the Opéra de Montréal season opener, as did Giancarlo Monsalve as the idealistic painter Cavaradossi, even if this handsome Chilean tenor had his rough patches and treated the Act 3 aria more as an exercise in method acting than bel canto. Moore-Wagner swallowed a note in the early going, making me reflect on the disadvantages of a life led hearing opening nights in which the first 20 minutes are often an exercise in getting it together.
All the same, with a hearty chorus and vivid supporting performances (especially from the crisp baritone Patrick Mallette as Angelotti and the ripe bass Valerian Ruminski as the Sacristan), vocal enthusiasts got
their money’s worth.
The stately period production designed by Robert Perdziola and premièred at the Cincinnati Opera did nothing to offend the eye, even if Act 1 was more brightly lit than it needed to be. Andrew Nienaber (working from the playbook of Jose Maria Condemi) encouraged believable action. I liked the opening of Act 2, which found Scarpia (a political figure, as we should remember) looking at a map of Italy.
The director perhaps erred in trimming the solemn arrangement of candles Tosca undertakes after knifing Scarpia. Puccini wrote many bars of music with this ritual in mind. Asking Tosca simply to stare earnestly at the corpse is not much of a substitute (although she did finally lay a crucifix on the chest of her tormentor). Nor did I appreciate the Nutcracker-like changing of the guard at the start of Act 3. In this atmospheric passage, Puccini’s music is all we need.
Yet considering the nonsense that prevails in opera these days, this was not a Tosca to nitpick over. Especially with solid support from the Orchestre Métropolitain (nice unison horns in Act 3) in a performance led by Giuseppe Grazioli (a newcomer to the OdM) that made up in textural detail what it sometimes lacked in volume and vigour.