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Conducted by
Noel Davis
Original director
David McVicar
Revival
directed by
Elaine Tyler-Hall
Designed by
Michael Vale
Cast
Tosca
Claire Rutter
Cavaradossi
Julian Gavin
Scarpia
Stephen Kechulius
Angelotti
D'Arcy Bleiker
Sacristan
Graeme Danby
Spoletta
Wynne Evans
Sciarrone
Karl Daymond
Gaoler
Christopher Ross
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Coliseum
English National Opera
5
March - 15 April 2004 |
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However well
one knows Puccini's Tosca,
the beauty of its music and the simple
but endlessly fresh story that soars
on that musics wings makes every re-encounter
feel like the first. It is hard to imagine
any professional opera company failing
to please an audience with Tosca,
and given the habitual warmth and sincerity
of the ENO's characteristic manner,
any Tosca
it offers must delight. And this one
certainly does: a full, rich, mellifluous
handling of the score by the orchestra,
and the casts spirited performances
which were, in the best sense, theatrical
as well as operatic, ensured the result.
The overall
treatment was classic: no innovations
or tricks, no updating or elicitation
of unsuspected readings: it was pure,
straightforward Tosca,
exactly as it might have been seen at
its Roman premiere over a century ago.
This is not to imply that new treatments
of classics are unwelcome; far from
it; every living work of art merits
the inventiveness of new directors and
casts. But it is also a refreshment
to touch base at times, especially when
nothing really needs to be added to
music so emotionally speaking, and a
story so utterly and unequivocally direct,
as in Puccini's version.
If there
was anyone in this sound and talented
cast who stood out, it was Stephen Kechulius
as Scarpia. He is as if made for the
part, conveying all the menace and lust,
the cruelty and calculation, that the
part requires, and singing it in an
unobtrusively fine voice itself fitted
as a glove to the character. Claire
Rutter as Tosca is a very good actress,
with an excellent sense of timing: her
finding the knife, her hesitation before
placing the candles and the crucifix
at Scarpia's corpse, were perfect. Julian
Gavin has a pleasing voice, which held
itself well in the passionate reaches
of the music. It was notable that Amanda
Holden's English version of the text
worked extremely well throughout, and
best of all where it mattered most,
in the great arias of the second and
third acts.
AC Grayling |
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