DVD/150: TOSCA (Jonathan Kent / Jonathan Haswell, 2011)

A wonderful opportunity to see again Jonathan Kent's thrilling production of TOSCA at The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

I first saw Puccini's opera at the English National Opera but it's Jonathan Kent's ROH production that I have now seen twice.

TOSCA made it's London debut in 1900 at Covent Garden and Puccini's tragic, headstrong heroine has appeared practically every year since then, apart from during the World Wars.

We follow one day in the lives of diva Floria Tosca, her Republican lover Caravadossi and their nemesis Chief of Police Scarpia in the dangerous atmosphere of Rome, 1800 as Napoleon's army advances.

Kent's production plays like a runaway train with the late Paul Brown's sumptious sets and costumes, and Mark Henderson's atmospheric lighting adding wonders.

In Jonathan Haswell's film, Tosca is vibrantly sung by Angela Gheorghiu, Jonas Kaufmann is an impassioned Caravadossi and Bryn Terfel is a deliously evil Scarpia.

Shelf or charity shop?  A definite keeper to relive the passion and the pure emotion of Puccini's score in Jonathan Kent's thrilling production.  A special mention must go to the glorious playing of the Royal Opera House orchestra under the baton of Antonio Pappino.

TOSCA at Covent Garden - Up On The Roof...

The current score?  English National Opera 1 - Royal Opera 2

So after first seeing TOSCA onstage in 2016 performed by the ENO, we have now seen it at Covent Garden twice in Jonathan Kent's wonderfully fluid and thrilling production.  Yes I know what happens in the end but that's really not the point.  It's being there and experiencing Puccini's huge score played live by the Royal Opera House Orchestra, seeing singers belting out their passions while having your emotions wrung out to dry.

TOSCA had premiered in Rome only six months before it was first performed in London at the Opera House in 1900 and our tragic, headstrong heroine has swept across it's stage practically every year since then, only taking a break when the theatres closed at the outbreak of the World Wars.

Giacomo Puccini insisted that the original Sardou play be stripped by his librettist to the bare minimum, nothing was to distract from the main characters' triangular relationship of fate, namely the diva Floria Tosca and her Republican lover Caravadossi who fall foul to the machinations of chief of police Scarpia in the tinderbox atmosphere of Rome in summer, 1800 as Napoleon's army advances.

Jonathan Kent's 2006 production has been restaged by Andrew Sinclair but the production now stands as a tribute to the designer Paul Brown who died in 2017.  His wonderful designs for TOSCA have an epic quality to them - his Act 1 Sant'Andrea della Valle chapel is wonderfully realized especially in the Te Deum scene, with the front-stage occupied by Scarpia in the gloomy chapel while above and behind it, the main church is ablaze with light as a mass is sung to celebrate the alleged defeat of Napoleon.

The Act 2 palazzo apartment for Scarpia is dominated by a huge statue of a conquering figure with drawn sword which, of course, mirrors the later action where Tosca kills Scarpia - although when she sings her magnificent aria "Vissi d'arte", it's huge size dwarfs her to mirror the supplicating song she is singing.  Brown's Act 3 battlements for the Castel Sant'Angelo are stark and dramatic; after the cluttered and claustrophobic sets, here Tosca and Caravadossi can, for a few minutes at least, sing their love to the heavens with the wind in their hair.

Mark Henderson's lighting was as wonderfully evocative as ever: the Act 1 Te Deum performed in a blaze of light in the main church while Scarpia plots in the shadows of the chapel, the end of Act 2 with the pinpoints of candle-light in Scarpia's palazzo room and then the barely noticeable change from night to grey dawn in Act 3.  Something I had never noticed before is Puccini's use of the bells of Rome which seem to toll all over the city to proclaim the dawn; this is achieved by having sets of bells set up all along the backstage area to get the suitable sound of church-bells near and far and with different tones.  It is wonderfully effective and of course added to the magnificent soundscape provided by the orchestra under the baton of Alexander Joel.

There was a mighty intake of breath before the start when the curtains opened to reveal a woman with a hand-mike; she said that Kristine Opolais (Tosca) and Vittorio Grigolo (Carravadossi) were suffering from colds - "GROAN" said the audience - however they both were still going to perform and asked forgiveness for any shortcomings - "HURRAY" said the audience.

You would never know they were suffering as they both gave full-throated performances as our troubled lovers with both hitting their peak at the right time - Opolais with a heart wrenching "Vissi d'arte" and Grigolo with a spellbinding "And The Stars Shone" both of which were rewarded with huge ovations and lusty cries of 'Brava' (no, it wasn't me doing that!)  Bryn Terfel was a deliciously nasty Scarpia, commanding the stage with great presence and lampshade-rattling vocal power.

TOSCA will be back at Covent Garden next summer; I can get my fix by watching the Royal Opera House's 2012 DVD of Jonathan Kent's production... but... you never know...

TRIO CONCERTDANCE at the Linbury Theatre, Royal Opera House - music and movement

It took 22 days into the new year but I finally went to the theatre.  I am amazed I knew how to sit in the seat properly.  It was a first visit to the newly-designed Linbury Theatre which sits in the basement of the Covent Garden Opera House as it's studio space.  We had been a few years ago to see The Unthanks - when they were called the unwieldy Rachel Unthank and The Winterset - but it was a rather cold auditorium which has now been transformed into a shining wooden nest of a space which rather oddly has it's upper circle level on the ground floor, the oval staircase proving to be a bit slow-moving both going in and coming out.

Our visit was to see the wonderful Alessandra Ferri in a programme that she devised with American Ballet Theater principal Herman Cornejo and concert pianist Bruce Levingston.  Four pas de deux and a solo each were interspersed with piano pieces by Satie, Chopin, Glass and Bach among others.  The six dances all have different choreographers and amongst them were Russell Maliphant, Wayne McGregor and Cornejo himself.

The real thrill was being only five rows from the stage so it was very easy to be overtaken by the limpid mood of the music and the dance, it was great to be so close too to see the total immersion in the music and movement by Cornejo and especially the magnificent Alessandra; she was hypnotic enough on the Covent Garden main stage in McGregor's WOOLF WORKS but here she was extraordinary.

Cornejo was an excellent partner for her, as they seemingly mirrored each other throughout the pieces - one moment him supporting her then she supporting him.  They were partnered by the excellent playing of Levinstone, his piano's notes floating across the open stage for them to simply hang upon and be spun around by them.

They were joined in the final number by the strings of the Halcyon Quartet and the added volume helped make this a remarkable finale, with Mozart's music brought to life by French choreographer Angelin Preljocaj; especially the breathtaking moment of Ferri's armed locked around Cornejo's neck as he spun around as they kissed.  A special mention too to the nuanced, subtle lighting of Clifton Taylor.

A lovely night of gentle surprises and revelations...

TURANDOT at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden - I didn't sleep!

Back to the Opera House, Covent Garden... but not for ballet!  Only three months after seeing Puccini's MADAMA BUTTERFLY on that marvellous stage, we were back to see the maestro's final opera TURANDOT,  yes... the one with *that* aria.

As soon as Giacomo Puccini committed to writing the opera in early 1920, he raced ahead of his librettists Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni and by December, when they delivered their first draft, the composer was drumming his fingers, eager to fit the music he had written into the plot line.  But the opera's birth was a protracted affair, with characters being re-written and the plot streamlined but in 1924 the opera looked completed.

However the ending of the story proved problematic and Puccini remained unhappy with the plot and his contribution to it, but his own final act was fast approaching; he was diagnosed in October with throat cancer and, unaware of the full extent of his illness, he died in pain one month later.  With TURANDOT still not completed, the task was given to composer Franco Alfano but the first attempt was rejected as too wide of what Puccini would have wanted and a shorter version was finally accepted.

However at the very first production at La Scala in 1926, the composer Toscanini stopped after the onstage death of the character Liu and addressed the audience that this was the last music composed by Puccini as the curtain fell.  However the subsequent performances included the Alfano ending and that is how the opera is performed.

TURANDOT made it's London debut the following year at Covent Garden and has played regularly ever since; the current production was first seen in Los Angeles in 1984 when the Royal Opera appeared at the Cultural Olympiad and we saw the 277th production of it!  Again I think it's remarkable - and somewhat alarming - how long productions stay in both the opera and ballet repertoires at Covent Garden.  I guess it shows how much new productions cost to stage...

That said, Andrei Serban's production (revived here by Andrew Sinclair) is wonderfully vivid and moves like a train through the simple plot: Calaf, the disguised Prince of Tartary is reunited with his deposed father King Timur who has only his slave girl Liu to look after him, needless to say Liu has always loved the Prince from afar.  They are reunited in Peking which is ruled by the beautiful Princess Turandot who has set a heavy price on any man who would marry her.

Like the Sphynx, the icy Turandot asks the men three impenetrable riddles and are summarily executed in public should they get the questions wrong; the Princess has sworn she will revenge the rape and murder of an earlier Princess in her dynasty on all men who would dare ask her to marry.  Needless to say Calaf falls immediately in love with Turandot and accepts the riddle challenge.  Amazingly he answers the riddles correctly and amid the crowd's jubilation, notices that Turandot remains unmoved.  He offers her a deal: if she can discover his real identity by dawn he will allow himself to be executed...

The story's bloodthirsty theme is playfully evoked by the set being littered and over-hung with large wooden heads showing all the men executed for failing the challenge, the bloody gore represented by long, trailing red ribbons.  The design by Sally Jacobs was a marvellous mix of the simple and the extravagant: the set was a curved two-storey wall which allowed the chorus to stand and watch the plot unravel, with occasional huge set-pieces like a dragon-festooned knife-grinder for the Executioner to ride around on, a pagoda for Calaf to rest during the long night before his possible-execution and a golden throne for the Emperor of Peking to descend from the heavens.

The Opera House orchestra sounded wonderful, making Puccini's ravishing music sweep you along in it's wake, the climax being - as it should be - the third act opener 'Nessun Dorma'.  It was marvellous to hear it in it's proper setting, presaged by a darkened stage being illuminated from behind the wall by light from the palace and large lanterns bobbing around Calaf's pagoda.  I didn't think I would be moved by the aria but I was, understanding it's place in the story-telling made it all the more special and it was excellently sung by Roberto Alagna as Calaf.  The odd thing being that it is so much a part of the story-telling that Calaf is interrupted as soon as he finishes belting out his final 'Vinceró'by three other characters... the urge to clap had to wait until the finale when the Nessun Dorma theme is reprised.

Lise Lindstrom was in imperious form as the icy Turandot but the biggest cheers were reserved for Aleksandra Kurzak as the tragic Liu, her two arias were beautifully sung and she gave her character a real personality which cannot be said for the others thanks to the basic shallowness of the libretto.  I also liked the trio of ministers Ping Pang and Pong who were well sung by Leon Kosavic, Samuel Sakker and David Junghoon Kim.

it's an odd opera, the rushed happy ending (for everyone but Liu and Timur) is not quite believable but Puccini's majestic and thrilling Chinese-influenced score is marvellous and the story, while thin, powers along.  Added to this, a production that is witty and spectacular and you have a real treat.  Now... let's find another Puccini...