Yoncheva and Eyvazov in Tosca at Covent Backyard put the ‘grand’ again into grand opera – Seen and Heard Worldwide

United Kingdom Puccini, Tosca: Soloists, Refrain and Orchestra of the Royal Opera Home / Andrea Battistoni (conductor). Royal Opera Home, Covent Backyard, London, 14.7.2023. (JPr)

Manufacturing:
Director – Jonathan Kent
Revival director – Peter Relton
Designer – Paul Brown
Lighting designer – Mark Henderson
Refrain director – William Spaulding

Solid:
Angelotti – Germán E. Alcántara
Sacristan – Jeremy White
Cavaradossi – Yusif Eyvazov
Tosca – Sonya Yoncheva
Baron Scarpia – Aleksei Isaev
Spoletta – Hubert Francis
Sciarrone – Jamie Woollard
Gaoler – John Morrissey
Younger Shepherd – Madeleine McGhee

British director Jonathan Kent had a tough act to observe when creating a brand new Tosca manufacturing after 4 a long time of the legendary Franco Zeffirelli one which had returned repeatedly to Covent Backyard and racked up a complete of 242 performances. On the time Kent commented how ‘Every era has to reinvent these classics or they grow to be museum items’. The full for Kent’s Tosca have to be fairly spectacular by now too and there are extra performances to come back subsequent season when Sonya Yoncheva, making her position debut right here as Tosca, sings Puccini’s diva once more.

I noticed the Zeffirelli Tosca many instances from 1980 (with Shirley Verrett within the title position) and Kent’s many instances too since 2006 and I believed it is perhaps attention-grabbing to go proper again and see what I wrote then. Eighteen years in the past, I thought of it a triumph of substance over fashion and one thing I’d have anticipated to see – magnified about 3 times – on the amphitheatre in Verona; particularly Paul Brown’s arching staircase which might dwarf the singers there nearly as a lot because it does at Covent Backyard. In the meantime Brown’s costumes appeared again to Zeffirelli fairly than convey something new to Kent’s model. In Act I there may be nonetheless a whole lot of clambering up a ladder to the platform the place Cavaradossi is working and Yusif Eyvazov – additionally making a task debut – didn’t appear to benefit from the expertise a lot. Additionally, there are the hasty entrances from the again of a split-level stage to get to the highest of the staircase in time, adopted by all of the strolling up and down the steps, all undermining Tosca and Scarpia’s entrances.

I nonetheless assume the primary act set, utilized in a sure manner, would have made for a splendidly intimate setting for Act II. Singers had already been thrust to the entrance of the stage with their voices thrown ahead by a semi-circular church set. This was much more noticeable on this event as I feel this July matinee Tosca was the loudest I’ve ever heard. Not in a foul manner, fairly the opposite, it was thrilling stuff of the type I’ve not heard at Covent Backyard for a while: not that I’m there as a lot as I was. In Act II there’s a monumental library with a big central statue of a legendary determine with a sword. A lot of candlesticks after all, together with two handily positioned side-by-side on what appeared unusually, amongst this opulence, to appear to be a trestle-table for Scarpia to eat his meal off.

Within the third act the stage opened up and there’s a new vista with a long-curved wall, 4 execution posts throughout the entrance of the stage and we see the gaoler at his ablutions. Cavaradossi sings his reflective aria in murky gentle; the lighting by Mark Henderson remains to be not certainly one of this manufacturing’s strengths. Too usually – and particularly when a star singer brings her personal costumes – Tosca emerges sporting one thing solely completely different from Act II, as if she had gone garments purchasing. Fortunately right here – and serving to make it extra dramatically credible – Tosca was in the identical elegant sliver-grey robe.

The musical values of this Tosca will need to have been on an all-time excessive for latest seasons at Covent Backyard as a result of not often have I seen the casting for verismo-fashion operas with two (or three right here possibly?) exceptionally gifted singers on the prime of their kind. There may be an argument to recommend the principal singers simply crammed their lungs and sang forte on a regular basis when slightly extra subtlety wouldn’t have come amiss. However would I’ve needed to have seen and heard it some other manner when it was completed, no I wouldn’t, like all of the others becoming a member of within the large ovation the forged obtained.

Any sense that debutant – and welcome again anytime – Andrea Battistoni might need some other consideration for this opera than as a can belto one have been dismissed as quickly as he allowed the iron-lunged Yusif Eyvazov to hold on to his prime C of ‘Vittoria! Vittoria!’ past all expectations. What a pleasure it was to have Eyvazov affirm how – as I’ve believed from a number of latest streamed performances – he is likely one of the main dramatic tenors of this era. ‘E lucevan le stelle’, though full-throated, was phrased superbly with simply the correct quantity of despair and remorse. Eyvazov sung his ode about Tosca’s darkish eyes with an actual sense of poetry and there was nice chemistry between him and Yoncheva which appeared to result in this Cavaradossi and Tosca being extra affectionate than we typically see, Madonna or no Madonna. As soon as once more on the finish Cavaradossi goes together with Tosca’s plans to flee with out believing it’s going to succeed. Eyvazov’s performing was completely credible all through with out there being any alternative for the successful smile he revealed at his curtain name.

Sonya Yoncheva as Tosca performed the position of the normal diva to perfection particularly when enacting all her character’s insecurities and jealousy in Act I. Her ‘Vissi d’arte’ was a deeply touching prayer and sung with appreciable sorrow about her plight. The stabbing was impressively staged along with her vehemence (she spat out Tosca’s phrases ‘E avanti a lui tremava tutta Roma!’) as affecting and efficient as her forgiveness for the vile seducer Scarpia as she removes the crucifix from her neck and locations it on his corpse with these two candles both facet of him.

Aleksei Isaev’s venal Scarpia was a black-hearted villain to the core, and he had a really darkish baritone sound. Right here he gave the impression to be a remorseless sadist whose different ‘ardour’ is to drive girls to do his bidding and Isaev introduced little of the air of civility – we all know is barely pretence – which some singers convey to the position. Isaev totally deserved the gentle pantomime-style booing he received from some within the viewers! For me, he might need made just a bit extra of the Italian phrases than he did, but it surely was a memorable portrayal nonetheless.

A superb ensemble noticed splendid vignettes from Germán E. Alcántara’s fleeing Angelotti, Jeremy White’s fussy Sacristan, Hubert Francis’s compliant Spoletta and Madeleine McGhee’s plaintive Younger Shepherd.

From the best way the orchestra performed for Battistoni you might by no means think about they have been in the midst of a long term of Toscas as they sounded contemporary, vivid and thrilling from the second the conductor threw his arms within the air for the doom-laden begin with its opening Scarpia chords. From then on it was as if the musicians had been let of a leash and there was all the fear and keenness you count on from Puccini’s ‘shabby little shocker’.

All in all, it was an old school, grand Italian night time – effectively afternoon! – on the opera, one thing I had nearly given up hope of ever being at once more

Jim Pritchard