Drawn in at every turn by characters played and sung with utter conviction, the audience is swept along on Tosca’s thrilling, action-packed, emotional journey, their eyes and ears feasting all the way on elegance and beauty.
This fast-moving thriller first shocked the public in 1887 in a play by French dramatist Victorien Sardou, dedicated to star actress of the day, Sarah Bernhardt. By 1900, Puccini had embellished the story of police corruption, political conflict, sexual predation, ruthless abuse of power, blackmail, treachery, sadistic torture, firing squad execution, murder, suicide, jealousy and love with such exciting, dramatic orchestration and compelling, lyrical arias (plus a libretto by Illica and Giacosa) that the resultant hit opera sits in the Top Five to this day, thrilling audiences all over again.
Edward Dick’s Opera North production was first performed in 2018 and has bounced back to life – and death – this year. No longer set in the Napoleonic wars, the story has moved into modern times; now a prisoner’s torture can be instigated via mobile phone and viewed on a laptop. The plot, relationships, twists, turns and devastating details of the tragedy, though, are just the same, down to the last bullet and final plummet.
Working perfectly with Tom Scutt’s striking set to create a brooding atmosphere are Lee Curran’s sensitive, excitingly subtle lighting, Maxine Braham’s choreographed movement, and Fotini Dimou’s costumes of appropriately subdued hues, ranging from the menacing, smart, black suits and overcoats of despicable, corrupt police chief Scarpia and his henchmen thugs to modern casual wear, glittering evening attire, and divinely clad clergy in stunning, superbly lit tableaux.
Main focus onstage is a huge cupola painted with a Madonna, the eye section of which is missing at the outset as if the Madonna were blindfolded. Artist Cavaradossi is working on this section in the church below, where it sits on a wheeled base whose versatile movement allows it to join in the elegant stage choreography or simply provide a fine perch for singer Floria Tosca in her initial playful, coquettish, light-hearted mood – and sunglasses – before events race her life darkly downhill. The cupola rotates to different angles for the three acts: beneath it in the shadowy church, vertical lines of neat spotlights and dark banks of sparkling votive candles bring to mind a Tardis interior; at the end, when the cupola sits sideways, it appears first as a black hole rimmed with bright light, then is lit to resemble more a giant trombone bell upon which the painted Madonna can be hidden in shadow or illuminated into visibility. For the spectacular finale the centre fills with intense yellow as, in dark silhouette, Tosca stands inside, outstretched and elegant. Falling gracefully back to her death as if in slow motion in a breathtaking, affecting move, soprano Gisele Allen completes the emotional journey she’s taken us on to such terrific effect.
Like her eyes, Gisele Allen’s Tosca is tender and fierce; she’s feisty, determined, impulsive and jealous yet still warm, loving and vulnerable. Allen, who also took the role for Opera North in 2012 and in 2018, like all the cast, never lapses into over-exaggeration or caricature but presents a credible human we genuinely feel for, touching hearts in her beautiful, sensitively sung Vissi d’Arte. Mykhailo Malifii’s artist Cavaradossi is likewise a credibly warm character and the chemistry between the lovers works well, his upper tenor register also ringing (wringing) out moving emotion in the likes of E Lucevan le Stelle.
Fine touches of early humour come from Matthew Stiff as The Sacristan in Act I, while Callum Thorpe sings admirably as worthy and desperate escaped political prisoner, Angelotti, whom Cavaradossi helps hide – to his cost and to Tosca’s. With relished menace baritone Robert Hayward reprises the role of despotic, villainous Scarpia who so much lusts after Tosca. In church in Act I, the hypocrite is outwardly all holy devotion, his Te Deum splendidly performed by him with the whole elegant ensemble. In Act II, standing, sitting, lying or writhing on a mini-stage created by his bed with its tall frame, the thuggish police chief reveals the extent of his lecherous lust, brutal depravity, sadistic intent and villainy. It’s here, too, he dies, his stabbed, distorted, cruciform corpse oozing blood until its final, horrifying twitch. Yet even after his own murder, he brings violent, unwarranted death to the lovers.
The Orchestra of Opera North, this time under the baton of Adam Hickox, enhances the well-sung proceedings, as ever, with its own sparkling performance, different instruments coming to the fore in the exciting orchestration of dramatic entries and build-ups of tension, climaxes and swift-moving turns of events that take us from light, tender moods to explosions of intense horror, turmoil, death and despair in a drama that’s as fresh, relevant and poignant as ever. Brava, bravo and bravissimi all round!
Eileen Caiger Gray
The production tours to Salford, Newcastle, Nottingham and Hull. You can find out more by visiting the Opera North website by following this link.
