An excellent Tosca by the New York Met
“This is the best Tosca I ever did. This set, this production, these costumes… we return to the 1950s, 1960s, a golden age of opera.”
So spoke baritone Zeljko Lucic, the evil Scarpia of the latest New York Met HD Live telecast seen at Perth Playhouse on January 7.
As well as a mighty voice, he had absorbed all the subtlety of director Sir David McVicar and gave a convincing, falsely smiling, actually physically groping performance.
No less fine were the voices of Sonya Yoncheva as Floria Tosca and Vittorio Grigolo as her lover, the painter Mario Cavaradossi.
The lower tessitura of the role did darken her voice, but in Act 1 she showed a youthfulness, maturing in the confrontation of Act 2.
Her Vissi d’arte impressed, but, as with Grigolo’s Recondita armonia and E lucevan le stelle, showed an unwelcome ‘golden age’ aspect: too much indulgence given to the singer by the conductor.
Her final shriek of “Die!” over the stabbed Scarpia was electrifying, even through the electronics and thousands of miles from New York.
Vittorio Grigolo also had an attractive youthful enthusiasm to add to his ringing tones, as shown in his cries of Vittoria. He too had a vivid offstage scream as tortured.
Puccini has painstakingly located Tosca and designer John Macfarlane believed him: so we saw the three believably solid, real places: the set for Scarpia’s apartments in the Farnese Palace had its own round of applause. Costumes were of the Met’s superlative standards and the orchestra had a menacing bass drum well emphasised.
An excellent Tosca in all aspects, with the one niggle that the conductor Emmanuel Villaume should have made the pace more consistently dramatic.
Donizetti’s joyous comedy The Elixir of Love is broadcast live on Saturday, February 10 at 5.55pm.
Sonya Yoncheva as Tosca in New York Met’s show