Well-sung ‘Tosca’ aims for realism

From the moment it premiered in 1900, Giacomo Puccini’s “Tosca” has been beloved by fans for its glorious score but derided by critics for its melodrama and stilted libretto.

So it’s doubly pleasing to see a new “Tosca” production that not only celebrates its lush score with world-class singers but also pares away most of the hard-to-buy plot twists.

“Tosca” opened San Diego Opera’s mainstage season Saturday at the San Diego Civic Theatre. The scenery designed by Andrew Horn is spectacular, with huge and stately cathedral, palace and prison tower sets. But the real engine of the show is the intimate human drama portrayed by its three principal singing actors.

Director Lesley Koenig has smartly avoided staging cliches and has steered her singers away from bombastic performances. Instead their arias are performed with technical precision and entirely in character. It’s not the flashiest “Tosca” you’ll ever hear, but it rings truer than most.

Greek soprano Alexia Voulgaridou makes a heartrending local debut as Floria Tosca, the Roman opera singer whose romantic jealousy has tragic consequences for all. She’s flighty, feminine and playful with her lover, painter Mario Cavaradossi, but she flashes with fury and sings both plaintively and almost convulsively from the soul in the famous aria “Vissi d’arte.”

As the doomed Cavaradossi, Welsh tenor Gwyn Hughes Jones sings with such robust power and ease that he makes it look easy to fill the cavernous Civic Theatre with his opening aria “Recondita Armonia,” which ends impressively on a sustained high B-flat. And his heartbreaking closer, “E lucevan le stelle,” is so achingly pure that it’s a shame the orchestra didn’t take a beat to give the opening-night audience a chance to applaud his efforts.

American bass-baritone Greer Grimsley returns as the villainous police chief Baron Scarpia, a role he played here in the 2009. Vocally he’s nuanced and menacing, and dramatically he’s icy-cool and calculating. His Scarpia isn’t a cartoonishly over-the-top lecher. He’s more the quietly corrupt bureaucrat who patiently amuses himself with a plan to rape Tosca and kill her lover.

Of course, Tosca has other plans for their finale. The cat-and-mouse game between Tosca and Scarpia has some realistic physical combat (and notably no use of the symbolic crucifix). And when Cavaradossi is gunned down by the “mock” firing squad, he doesn’t die right away, which helps make sense of Tosca’s seeming ignorance of his injuries.

Conductor Massimo Zanetti leads the San Diego Symphony seamlessly through the tw- hour, 40-minute production (which includes two intermissions). There’s especially pleasing work by the horns and woodwinds and the orchestra never overpowers or rushes the singers.

The San Diego Opera Chorus, led by Charles Prestinari, add a majestic sweep to the “Te Deum” scene in the first act. And Gary Marder’s lighting, particularly the gradual arrival of dawn in the third act, adds realism.

New company General Director David Bennett got the evening off to an upbeat start, telling the sold-out crowd that the once-endangered company has balanced its books for the second season in a row. He also offered a sneak peek of the 2016-2017 season, which will open in October.

Next season, San Diego Opera will return to a five-show lineup, with three grand operas at the Civic Theatre and two chamber-size works at the Balboa Theatre. The season-opener will be Gioachino Rossini’s “La Cenerentola” (“Cinderella”) at the Civic followed in November by “Soldier Songs” at the Balboa.

Opening on Veterans Day, David T. Little’s 2011 “Soldier Songs” is a rock-influenced American opera for baritone and amplified septet, inspired by interviews Little conducted with veterans of five conflicts from World War II to Afghanistan.

Still to come this season are another opera by Puccini, “Madama Butterfly” in April as well as the West Coast premiere of “Great Scott” in May, not to mention a benefit recital next month by Italian bass Ferruccio Furlanetto.

Judging by the enthusiastic audience, assured leadership at the helm and the quality of this production, San Diego Opera’s ship is once again on the right course.