Perhaps it's the effect of the heat and humidity, but on both of my visits to the Royal Opera House in July, things seemed to be afflicted with a certain ennui. I had hoped that by coming to the ROH's new production of Tosca late in the run, I would find it bedded down and would be able to break the critical consensus about it. But when I saw it, what it most needed was livening up rather than settling down. It was a very dull affair. Even the violent and massive triple forte orchestral chords that provide the opera's explosive opening were flaccid, as if the orchestra couldn't bring itself to demand the audience's attention, knowing it would not be held for long. This was Jonathan Kent's debut production for the ROH, and one can at least say that it was remarkably untainted by directorial narcissism.
Unfortunately, it was also unhappily innocent of dramatic impetus. You'd think that one thing a British director would be able to do was to present an emotionally compelling costume drama, but in this case good taste rather sucked the life out of Puccini's melodrama. When Cavarodossi was released from being tortured in Act II, he looked as if he'd just had a mild reprimand from his bank manager—unbloodied as far as one could see from the middle of the stalls—and within moments was singing blithely, chest out and arms flung sidewards in the grand tradition of the three tenors. Throughout the opera, there was an awful lot of singing while staring into the mid-distance, and when Tosca, having stabbed Scarpia, sings "And before him the whole of Rome trembled," not even his lifeless body on the floor was enough to catch her eye.
One so often complains of conflict between the music and the action in operatic productions that it seems ungracious now to complain that musically and dramatically this Tosca was all too much of a piece. The orchestra played accurately and opulently, but Antonio Pappano found little of the sensuality of the score. Go back to the great Victor de Sabata recording, and as Tosca makes her final exit in Act I, you'll hear the orchestra capture the full lasciviousness of Scarpia's gaze. Pappano gave us instead a moment of generic lushness. In a way, the central difficulty was Angela Gheorgiu's Tosca, but it would be unfair to put it like that. Given that her voice is much lighter than is usual, or indeed ideal, for the part, it was a testament to her skill that she coped as well as she did. "Vissi d'arte" was nicely shaped, and if performed in a recital would have been lovely. But this wasn't quite Tosca. Pappano was skilful in controlling the orchestral balance so as not to drown her out, but inevitably this required a cautiousness that somehow seeped through the whole evening, muting even Bryn Terfel's Scarpia. I have seen a clip of Riccardo Chailly's Amsterdam production of the late 1990s where Terfel was just electrifying in his incarnation of evil at the end of Act I, but not at Covent Garden, where his performance was curiously monochrome. Marcelo Alvarez, reliable and musical as Cavarodossi, turned out to be the most involving of the principals. Not what one would have predicted.
Carry On Cleo
Since an incipient cough kept me from returning for the last two acts of the ROH's Le Nozze di Figaro, I should not perhaps allow myself to dwell on this production. I wasn't much taken, though, by the Figaro of Kyle Ketelsen, who sang loudly or softly as required, but never managed to change the colour of his voice. Sophie Koch was a vibrant Cherubino, but not always in tune or with the orchestra, and even Soile Isokoski took a while for her voice to settle. Gerald Finley was splendid as the Count. On the night I went, it was conducted by David Syrus, the ROH's head of music. His speeds were nice, but much of the orchestral detail was simply passed over. The orchestra in Figaro should laugh and lament, smile and sympathise. Under Syrus it just accompanied, and not always very flexibly. Most striking, perhaps, was the unusual restraint of David McVicar's production, pointlessly, though not disastrously, updated to the 1830s. Indeed, by the end of Act II, the only gratuitous vulgarisation was to have Marcellina and Bartolo joyfully groping each other on Figaro's bed after his vengeance aria.
Anyone disappointed by McVicar's restraint in Figaro will be reassured by watching Opus Arte's recent DVD of his production of Handel's Giulio Cesare from last year's Glyndebourne festival. McVicar updates the action to the Raj, with the English as the Romans and Indians as the Egyptians—which, since the opera presents the former as virtuous and the latter as capricious and devious sensualists, is bravely un-PC. Musically, it is tremendous. Sarah Connolly is technically astonishing and has the full measure of Handel's writing. Angelika Kirchschlager is deeply affecting as Sesto. William Christie conducts with total assurance. The star, however, is Danielle de Niese as Cleopatra and it is difficult not to feel that she and McVicar brought out the worst in each other. Handel's opera is a heady mix of deep, often tragic, emotion and intense sensuality. McVicar's conception of what is sensual, however, seems to have been developed watching Barbara Windsor in the Carry On films, and de Niese all too enthusiastically fulfils his conception. The audience loves it, as they do the Bollywood dancing. Barnum would be proud.
