France Puccini, Tosca: Soloists, Maîtrise des Hauts-de-Seine, Chorus and Orchestra of l’Opéra nationwide de Paris / Paolo Bortolameolli (conductor). Opéra Bastille, Paris, 20.10.2022. (SL)
Production:
Director – Pierre Audi
Sets – Christof Hetzer
Costumes – Robby Duiveman
Lighting – Jean Kalman
Dramaturgy – Klaus Bertisch
Chorus grasp – Alessandro Di Stefano
Cast:
Floria Tosca – Elena Stikhina
Mario Cavaradossi – Brian Jagde
Baron Scarpia – Ambrogio Maestri
Cesare Angelotti – Sava Vemić
Spoletta – Michael Colvin
A Sacristan – Renato Girolami
Sciarrone – Philippe Rouillon
A Jailer – Christian Rodrigue Moungoungou
L’Opéra nationwide de Paris delivers every thing one might need and extra in an exhilarating manufacturing of Puccini’s Tosca, directed by Pierre Audi and first carried out there in 2014. Set in nineteenth-century Rome, a time of political turmoil, the opera navigates advanced themes of affection, competing political ideologies and violence. These themes, coupled with Christof Hetzer’s mystical set design and Robby Duiveman’s very good costumes, create an electrifying environment that units the tone for your entire efficiency.
When the primary act opens, a murky veil shortly lifts to disclose the imposing Church of Sant’ Andrea della Valle, shrouded in a blanket of smog. The drama of the opera begins when Brian Jagde as Mario Cavaradossi decides to harbor the political prisoner Cesare Angelotti, performed by Sava Vemić, after he escapes from jail. The two males flee the church to cover Angelotti within the countryside below the duvet of the youth choir’s rehearsal of ‘Te deum’, superbly carried out by the kids’s refrain, Maîtrise des Hauts-de-Seine.
When Ambrogio Maestri (an enormous voice and threatening presence) as Baron Scarpia, the Roman chief of police, suspects that Cavaradossi is the one harboring the escaped prisoner, he begins to interrogate Cavaradossi’s lover, Floria Tosca, sung by Elena Stikhina in very good voice. A celebrated soprano, Tosca enchants each man who crosses her path. Beneath the megalithic cross that hovers ominously above the stage, Tosca finds herself having to plead for the lifetime of her lover with the infatuated Scarpia, who takes Cavaradossi prisoner.
A spotlight of the efficiency is available in Act III when Jagde sings Cavaradossi’s ‘E lucevan le stelle’ as he awaits his execution. The retrospective aria (Italian for ‘and the stars were shining’) muses on Cavaradossi’s love for Tosca and the way it has all been in useless within the gentle of his impending loss of life. Jagde’s compelling efficiency was so magnificent that your entire opera home erupted in applause at its finish.
Fast-paced violence, torture, deception and manipulation are all accentuated by a thunderous efficiency from the Orchestra of l’Opéra nationwide de Paris. Under conductor Paolo Bortolameolli, the orchestra offers a panoramic basis for the opera that doesn’t miss a single beat.
Tosca might be exhibiting on the Opera Bastille till 26 November and is one to not be missed.
Sam Loetscher