Speranza
By courtesy to Mr. Pelkonon.
With the tedious inevitability of an unloved season, the Metropolitan Opera's
current Luc Bondy production of Tosca, received its third revival (in
four years).
This production, which transports Puccini's Roman
melodrama into a grim industrial setting better suited to Wozzeck, was
roundly booed on opening night in 2009.
Despite tweaks, adjustments and (a
performance of quality from its leading and supporting cast) it remains a
production best seen from the score desks in the Family Circle.
At
least the bare brick walls and cheerless, cheap furniture of this
post-industrial landscape were populated by decent singers.
Patricia Racette
(Tosca), Roberto Alagna (Cavaradossi) and George Gagnidze (Scarpia) have done
this show together so many times that the character's motivations have become
second nature.
But instead of going on operatic autopilot, all three artists dug
up with moments dramatic interest that shone brightly through the gloom.
Racette and Alagna managed to ignore the peculiarities of their environment
and deliver a rip-roaring evening of passion, mayhem and murder.
The soprano was
in fine fettle, her clear, slightly steely soprano melting at
appropriate moments and delivering belts of bright sound when needed.
Right
after "Recondita armonia" (when Tosca confronts Mario regarding his painting of
the blonde, blue-eyed Marchesa) Racette actually picked up a paintbrush and
moved toward the canvas, a steely intent in her eyes.
This became the focal
point of the lovers' duet, played with good humour and easy
familiarity.
Racette put herself into every line of "Vissi d'arte",
singing this famous aria with passion and meaning.
In the last act, the palpable
connection between these singers continued, with surreal moments (like when
Tosca demonstrates how to be "killed" by a fake firing squad) having a dreamy,
delusional quality.
Protected by their mutual love of high art and belting out
their unison "Trionfal," Cavaradossi and Tosca seemed to no longer believe the
harsh reality around them.
Alagna plays
Cavaradossi as an energetic, youthful figure who is brought down by his own
idealism.
There is evidence of wear on the tenor's voice.
In the first
act, he forced himself up into an over-bright and sometimes sharp register with
little evidence of a smooth transition between chest and head voice.
Yet the
singer improved as the evening went on, with a ringing "Vittoria!" and a moving
"E lucevan le stelle" that might have been the best part of the night.
"O dolci
mani" was sweet and moving--one last duet for these two artists in the grip of
their own delusions.
There is nothing delusional (or subtle) about George
Gagnidze's Scarpia.
He portrays the corrupt police chief as a bestial, amoral
sadist.
And while Scarpia should be all of those things, Mr. Gagnidze
plays the role without a hint of civility, growling his way through the first
act and (in this production's most controversial moment) sexually assaulting an
effigy of the Madonna in the middle of the Te Deum.
This bit of business
debases Scarpia into an ordinary villain without the intended mask of humanity
that would make the character all the more terrifying.
It's an insult to the
Madonna, to the composer, and ultimately to the audience.
The same could
be said for the opening of Act II. Scarpia's "poor supper" still consists of
three tawdry hookers, somehow recalling the "working girl" Rhinemaidens in
Patrice Chereau's 1976 production of the Ring.
The availability of this
easy sexual gratification (played with much pawing and drooling from Mr.
Gagnidze) makes the Chief's obsession with Tosca all the more baffling.
Happily,
the entrance of Alagna and Ms. Racette allowed singers and audience to get
back to the business of opera appreciation, as the bloody events of this famous
act were played to the absolute hilt.
The problems continued in the third
act, which now puts the ugly battlements and industrial chimney set against a
background of near-total darkness.
No sun rises in this Rome. (Cavaradossi is
supposed to be executed at dawn.)
Also, this revival retained Mr. Bondy's final
insult to its audience.
Replacing Tosca's traditional upstage plummet with the
fall of a dummy from said tower is still a bad idea.
Relying on a fast curtain
and staging the action in a way that renders it invisible to the whole right
side of the auditorium is worse.
Saturday, November 9, 2013
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