SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

It must be quite difficult to make Tosca dull, but this revival managed  that and more: here and there, it was  positively embarrassing. Much of the problem seemed to stem from revival director Benjamin Davis' vision of  the work, particularly his characterisation of Scarpia, which apparently attempted to turn melodrama into something more meaningful. The result was  a new twist to Joseph Kerman's famous description of the opera as a 'shabby little shocker.'

The point about melodrama - indeed its entire point - is that the characters in its blood and thunder plots are deliberate stereotypes. Tosca is the madly jealous but vulnerable diva, passionate about her art and idealised romance in equal measure and Cavaradossi is the hero figure standing for everything noble in political idealism,  spiritual expressiveness and life-long commitment to love. Scarpia on the other hand,  is the arch-villain who stops at nothing in his pursuit of power over other people, full of hatred and vengefulness sure enough, but also supremely self-confident in his dealings with both men and women. He rules with complete authority to get exactly what he wants and knows every trick in the book for achieving his (obviously) evil ends.

Not so for Mr. Davis apparently. His Scarpia is no more than a  bully fixated with psychoneurotic fantasies about sadism and sex, who writhes with orgasmic lust during Cavaradossi's torture and fumbles anxiously with his trouser buttons when attempting Tosca's seduction.  He's less manly than the flasher on the common.

Small wonder then that baritone Robert Hayward sang this Scarpia almost hesitantly - fiddling desperately with your trousers in Act II, or indeed knowing that you will be doing this later during  Act I - is enough to make anyone  low on menace, even such a seasoned singer. It does nothing for vocal authority either:  troupers can only do so much after all.

On paper, the performance should have been fine. Michael Blakemore's 1992 production has  traditional sets and no surprises, WNO's Musical Director Lothar Koenigs is a talented conductor who turned in a remarkable Wozzeck last autumn (see review) and the Tosca, the Portuguese soprano Elisabete Matos,  has a string of notable credits to her name, especially  in Spain. In January this year, my colleague José Irurzun rated Ms Matos a more than decent Senta in Madrid, she sang a praiseworthy Turandot in Valencia last April and  later made a fine Gutrune in the remarkable Valencia Götterdämmerung.  For that performance, JMI  said of her:
 

Elisabete Matos proved again with Gutrune that she is a most competent soprano, worthy of much more attention from the great opera houses. Hers was an excellent interpretation.

But something was  seriously amiss here which seemed to have disturbed almost all the singers.  Ms Matos sang an ear-splitting Tosca, certainly every inch the diva but rarely at anything less than ff even in 'Vissi D'arte' -   an unusual experience to say the least. Excessive volume in fact,  was pretty well the order of the evening except perhaps for Geraint Dodd's Cavaradossi.  While at his best with his rejoicing at the rumours of Bonaparte's victory, when his 'Vittoria, Vittoria!' rang out strongly and clearly, he seemed to struggle with placing his voice  in 'Recondita Armonia' and even  with his 'E lucevan...' in Act III.

As it happens, apart from his ideas about Scarpia, Mr. Davis's directorial hand was otherwise almost invisible, with no apparent impact even at the most dramatic moments - surely Cavaradossi ought to look just the teensiest bit emotional when Tosca turns up at his execution? Not here he didn't. And it's a  very  unusual Tosca indeed where the most impressive performances come from the Sacristan and Angelotti, both sung and acted  ably by Henry Waddington and Julian Close. These really were the only highlights.

While the usually persuasive Lothar Koenigs did what he could with the score, even that failed to take flight as Puccini  intended,  as if the general misguidedness of what was  - or wasn't  - happening on stage had somehow sapped the life out of it. The music won on points as always of course, thanks to the orchestra's sheer professionalism.

Bill Kenny