DAVID MELLOR
Tosca Royal Opera House, London ★★★★★
For the first time since 1954, two Britons are singing Tosca and Cavaradossi at Covent Garden. Natalya Romaniw is making her Covent Garden debut. She is much fresher than the average performer that the venue usually presses into service for this much-revived show, and her sheer musicality shines through in every phrase.
She is only 35 but has been out and about on the domestic circuit for 11 seasons. Her potential has been obvious to all but the wilfully blind, so the question needs to be asked, why has she not graced the Covent Garden stage before?
Romaniw is a dramatic soprano of pinpoint accuracy and real quality, and should be signed up for regular appearances at the London opera house.
One of the Royal Opera’s problems is that the casting director prefers to listen to opera abroad rather than in the UK, running the risk of missing major talents such as Romaniw who have featured extensively on the British country-house opera circuit, where he is rarely, if ever, seen.
The rumour mill right now is full of suggestions that the Royal Opera only narrowly missed the kind of budget slash inflicted on English National Opera. So there’s plainly an advantage for Covent Garden to show itself as more part of the British operatic scene than it currently does.
Freddie De Tommaso has fared better, and the effort that has been made to promote him domestically is showing real results. His appearance as Cavaradossi this time was far more confident, and stronger than previously, and largely confirms that the initial high opinions of him were justified.
The Uruguayan bass Erwin Schrott, though always a bit too camp for my liking, is an effective Scarpia here, and the veteran Israeli conductor Daniel Oren proves himself, on this visit at least, a sympathetic accompanist, keeping the volume down as an experienced conductor should to give his singers every opportunity to make a favourable impression without having to force their tone.