Hugo De Ana’s grand staging of Puccini’s opera doesn’t always cohere, but its emotive probing proves powerful and contemporary.
L’ARENA di Verona’s provocative, quirky production of Tosca for its 101st Opera Festival relocates Puccini’s politically-driven thriller from Rome during the Napoleonic wars to a damned modern-day thread in which church and state bounce as forces of reaction.
The story is acutely aware that the opera maps on to the downturns of our times – the printed program, contains photographs that depict not only historical references but also a wealth of contemporary facets of troubled societal issues.
Some context: the plot centres around three key characters — Rome’s diva Floria Tosca, her lover Mario Cavaradossi (a painter and republican) and the corrupt Chief of Police, Baron Scarpia. Scarpia has long lusted after Tosca, and when he suspects Cavaradossi of assisting an escaped political prisoner, he seizes the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. He will manipulate Tosca into revealing the prisoner’s hiding place and Cavaradossi’s involvement, and have her for himself.
©EnneviFoto / Fondazione Arena di Verona
Hugo De Ana’s direction and design version of the Tosca is dominated by a vast gilded setting that combines powerful symbols and sumptuous costumes, modelled on Rome’s pantheon for which Cavaradossi (Jonas Kaufmann) has supplied a fresco of Mary Magdalene, who gazes heavenwards, her eyes turned away from the humankind beneath.
Clerics and thugs scuttle around in the surrounding darkness, though the sudden glare of stage lights reminisces a time in which no one can keep anything hidden for long. The Te Deum, at which Ludovic Tezier’s Scarpia receives a cardinal’s blessing, is as much an impassioned patriotic exhortation as it is religious. It was an exceptionally intelligent evening, and much of what the protagonists did takes you by surprise.
With a diva playing a diva, I half expected self-dramatisation or scanty drama, but Elena Stikhina’s Tosca was remarkably powerful and vehement. Her voice has lost some of its lustre and richness of late, though the high Cs still have a weight that pins you to your seat. Her characterisation, however, is pleasingly vulnerable.
©EnneviFoto / Fondazione Arena di Verona
“From the very first moment, I am embraced by an incredible team of professionals—both on stage and behind the scenes,” Stikhina opined in a preview. “From the very first moment, I am embraced by an incredible team of professionals—both on stage and behind the scenes. Their unwavering support and dedication make this journey not only possible but immensely fulfilling. Every member of the production team, from the directors and conductors to the costume designers and stage crew, brings a level of expertise and passion that is truly inspiring. They are incredibly kind, always going above and beyond to ensure that each performance is as flawless as it is memorable.”
She’s skittish, even witty, in her opening duet with Jonas Kaufmann’s Cavaradossi, rather than indulging in flamboyant displays of jealousy. Her loathing when Ludovic Tezier’s Scarpia sexually blackmails her is tangible, while his murder – very much a fragment showcasing self-defence – results in deep psychological trauma.
Scarpia has long been one of Puccini’s greatest roles, and Tezier’s uncluttered approach allows the depth of his characterisation to register with tremendous force. He sings and acts with a painstaking refinement that heightens our consciousness of man’s innate corruption. We get a strong sense of the hedonic as well as the sadist.
You’d be wrong, however, if you thought this was a one-man show. There’s a groundbreaking Cavaradossi, one of the finest in recent years, from Jonas Kaufmann, entirely entrancing as artist, lover and revolutionary, with a vocal projection that’s dark, thrilling and brilliantly insistent. Stikhina’s Tosca beams at the top, but the orchestra engulfs her lower register at times.
The choir sounds terrific and suspenseful. Puccini, one gradually realises, is difficult to balance away from the theatre: Oren’s conducting dazzles and marvels but doesn’t – now and again – balance the score’s tempo. Some of this is extremely powerful, and the performances are often inevitably strong.
Kauffmann’s voice blazes comfortably in its upper registers, but there’s great lyrical warmth in the scenes with Stikhina which are beautifully done. Kauffmann is a mesmerising theatrical man, though Tezier sang with wonderful evenness of tone and electrifying fire. Arias was gloriously phrased, and the soloists’ words were often immaculate—the orchestra moved in its grand passion and sweeping intensity. The rest of it is, for the most part, comparably refined, due to Daniel Oren’s conducting—intense, passionate and detailed.
Compelling, despite occasional imperfections.
by Chidozie Obasi