Evan Zimmerman/MetOpera
Because of this season’s harsh chilly and up to date norovirus spike, parterre field misplaced its assigned Tosca reviewer, so I stepped as much as attend the Met’s third present of this run, the corporate’s 1020th efficiency of Puccini’s common melodrama, a piece I used to actively dislike. Whereas I nonetheless don’t love Tosca, opera doesn’t get any higher than Friday evening’s implausible Conflict of the Titans between Sondra Radvanovsky and Bryn Terfel!
Throughout my first twenty years of going to the Met, I solely made it to Tosca as soon as: in 1986, I used to be visiting New York and figured I actually should catch Placido Domingo and Eva Marton in what turned out to be her first efficiency after Juan Pons dislocated her jaw on the premiere. It was enjoyable, however I then continued to keep away from The Perils of Floria till a good friend in 2002 gave me a ticket he couldn’t use to see Sylvie Valayre, Richard Leech, and James Morris. I wasn’t whelmed and as an alternative my thoughts wandered to a video I’d lately found of Madame Vera Galupe-Borszkh’s basic second act, a superb parody of the enduring theatrical shtick that many Tosca lovers relish.
My sluggish conversion to fan started with the controversial Luc Bondy model, the primary of many new manufacturing misfires by the Peter Gelb administration. As a loyal Karita Mattila fan, I needed to go, however her off-kilter interpretation didn’t actually work. Nonetheless, I wasn’t dissuaded from returning to the Bondy later the identical season. What a distinction a very new forged meant: Patricia Racette (changing the initially introduced Mattila), Jonas Kaufmann, and Bryn Terfel, all showing of their roles for the primary time on the Met, eventually confirmed me what a blast a no-holds-barred Tosca will be.
Since then, I’ve embraced the opera some of the time, although Joseph Kerman’s pithy description is rarely removed from my thoughts. However over the previous decade Angela Gheorghiu, Sonya Yoncheva, Anna Netrebko, Aleksandra Kurzak, and Lise Davidsen have memorably revealed increasingly more aspects of the endlessly fascinating final prima donna function.
In 2011, my Valayre-gifting good friend and I went to Radvanovsky’s first Met Tosca which included the additional frisson ofRoberto Alagna unexpectedly showing as Cavaradossi, a last-minute alternative for an ailing Marcelo Alvarez. I’d been a fan (with reservations) of the diva since I first encountered her as Gutrune in 2000. Quickly after she grew to become Lincoln Heart’s resident Verdi soprano and I principally loved her in I vespri siciliani, Don Carlo, Ernani, Il trovatore and Stiffelio.Her big voice, whereas undeniably thrilling, is also harsh and off-pitch. In 2011, her Tosca proved promising; fourteen years later, it was completely magnificent, a very satisfying musical and dramatic embodiment of a difficult function by an artist on the peak of her powers.
Evan Zimmerman/MetOpera
Followers have been involved over the previous months about Radvanovsky as she’s pulled out of an alarming variety of necessary engagements, significantly of newer roles like Turandot and Woman Macbeth. However, now as a veteran Tosca—Friday was her 25th Met look as Puccini’s heroine—she provided a richly detailed portrayal filled with her personal illuminating touches which she dropped at the all-purpose conventional David McVicar staging that Gelb rapidly commissioned to interchange the much-loathed Bondy.
I’ve at all times thought {that a} Tosca barely older than Cavaradossi made lots of dramatic sense, and Radvanovsky performed with girlish delight her duet with Brian Jadge as her tall and good-looking painter-lover. Her jealousy over the blonde portrait was frivolously achieved: her teasing request for him to present his Madonna darkish eyes displayed no prima donna tantrum. However there was little doubt of their ardour when she joined Jagde in thrilling fortissimo excessive notes that elicited audibly ecstatic sighs from the packed viewers that included keen followers within the now rarely-sold standing room sections of each the Orchestra and Household Circle.
Radvanovsky’s first encounter with Terfel’s forbidding Scarpia confirmed a extra mature and reserved Tosca, although one simply manipulated by him. Some have steered that the soprano, who’s now 55, had taken time to heat up in earlier performances, however she was in agency command of her instrument from her offstage cries of “Mario!” to her tearful escape from Scarpia.
Throughout the high-stakes second Act, her hovering excessive notes nonetheless might singe like a blow torch, however she additionally deftly tackled Tosca’s most weak music with deeply-felt piani. Her raptly beautiful “Vissi d’arte,” for as soon as actually feeling like a prayer, started standing quietly, Radvanovsky then sinking to her knees solely close to the climax. One among her most arresting touches occurred when she intoned her devastating “Avanti a lui tremava tutto Roma” simply inches from the corpse’s face. She started with a husky snigger however which then dissolved into wracking sobs as she totally realized the immensity of her deadly act.
Her third Act featured probably the most excitedly optimistic Tosca I’ve ever encountered. Her duet with the condemned man brimmed with hopeful glee, and he or she wickedly introduced her forearm to her forehead to exhibit (twice!) how Mario ought to feign being shot. As he stood dealing with the firing squad, Radvanovsky gave a fast, encouraging wave earlier than the actual photographs rang out. Solely in her barely uneasy excessive B-flat earlier than leaping to her loss of life did Radvanovsky’s blazing prime falter.
In Terfel, singing one among his last performances as Scarpia, the soprano discovered a most worthy adversary. Although the bottom elements of his bass-baritone might be weak, he bit into his music with a daunting ferocity. His “courting” of Tosca didn’t recommend any amorous intent, from the primary he was merely going by way of the motions to entice his prey. As he towered over most everybody, Terfel’s Scarpia continuously menaced Tosca by leaning towards her, generally from a distance however typically from simply over her shoulder with a depraved glint in his eye.
Evan Zimmerman/MetOpera
At practically 60, Terfel’s voice has turn into considerably contracted which induced him to pressure as he sought to dominate the refrain within the Te Deum that concludes the primary Act. However within the extra frivolously scored monologue that begins the second, he roared with long-familiar incisiveness. Solely in his broadly expansive advances to Tosca did Terfel must bark or finesse the excessive notes. Although he clearly believes it’s now time to drop the function and although he might have lacked the sheer brute power he dropped at the Baron in 2011, Terfel’s Scarpia nonetheless proved mighty scary.
Maybe impressed by the towering artists with him, Jagde carried out Cavaradossi with unaccustomed sensitivity and nuance. Whereas nonetheless he nonetheless shot out impressively ringing excessive notes in his “Vittorias!,” he endowed each “Recondita armonia” and “E lucevan le stelle” with beautiful mushy dynamics and within the latter a movingly palpable dread. Patrick Carfizzi who has been the Sacristan in each Tosca because the manufacturing premiered in 2018 carried out together with his accustomed brio however mugged a bit lower than the final time I noticed him.
Constructing upon her extremely acclaimed firm debut main Madama Butterfly final season, Xian Zhang continued her bid to turn into the Met’s most-valued Puccini conductor. Her studying reveled within the beguiling particulars that dot the rating whereas accompanying her singers with care, significantly Radvanovsky who typically sought fairly elastic tempi. Nonetheless, she urged on the second act’s surging drama so forcefully that she generally lined Terfel however by no means Radvanovsky.
Whereas I used to be very grateful to expertise maybe at this time’s most interesting Tosca, I couldn’t assist wishing that I used to be as an alternative seeing Radvanovsky as Minnie or Gioconda and even Liza, a latest new function. The clock’s ticking, Mr. Gelb. Fortunate Chicago will hear Radvanovsky in three performances of her new all-Puccini extravaganza. Prime value is a dizzying $355!
However one can doubtless count on some first-time SR performances; she previewed her Cio-Cio-San with Piotr Beczala late final yr. However what I actually wish to hear is her “Tu tu piccolo iddio”!
A single Tosca with this stellar forged stays: Thursday’s last efficiency will be heard by way of the Met’s free livestream. However I urge anybody who can to attend in particular person a completely thrilling tackle Puccini’s massive, daring shocker.
