Opera Reviews
29 March 2024
Untitled Document

Breathing new life into Tosca



by Catriona Graham
Puccini: Tosca
Scottish Opera
November 2019
Natalya Romaniw (Tosca), Gwyn Hughes Jones (Cavaradossi)

It is easy to forget the impact of a realistic set.  As the curtain rises on Peter Rice’s church of Sant’Andrea della Valle, in Rome, lit by Robert B. Dickson, one notices the detail of the carved columns, the wrought-iron gates to the side chapel, the Madonna in her niche with the basin of holy water below. Anthony Besch’s production of Tosca for Scottish Opera is now 39 years old and it still works. But for how long? Forty years ago, the Italian fascist regime in which he set it was only forty years in the past.  Will so many people recognise the uniforms in the future, or will it be as much a period piece as the original Napoleonic setting?

The detail is carried through into the acting of a very good ensemble cast. Sure, Tosca herself is a diva, but the smaller parts are excellently played. Aled Hall positively encouraged the curtain call boos for his evil policeman Spoletta. He sings and acts the role with just the right degree of viciousness. Similarly, Paul Carey Jones’ Sacristan is a right fuss-pot, and fidgety too, the way he cleans Cavaradossi’s brushes, but crumples under the slightest pressure from the police.

There is detail too in the milling crowd – some tourists, some worshippers, some in advance of the procession to celebrate victory in some battle. Meanwhile, Angelotti has escaped from prison, concealed himself in the chapel, been discovered by the painter Cavaradossi, who has to lie to Tosca, pathologically jealous and absolutely convinced of his infidelity when she sees the face he has painted.

Natalya Romaniw is supple-voiced and nails Tosca’s mixture of piety, jealousy, diva-ness and, yes, a certain naivety, precisely. She looks convincingly 1940s, with wavy brown hair, and carries off the fur-trimmed coat with aplomb. ‘Vissi d’arte’ is heart-rending.  She puts up a good fight against Roland Wood’s Scarpia and her distress when she hears Cavaradossi being tortured is genuine.

Scarpia has all the swagger and sense of entitlement of a chief of police in a totalitarian regime. Tosca may be naïve enough to believe she has won Cavaradossi’s life and freedom, but Scarpia is one step ahead – except when he doesn’t expect her line of self-defence. As he lies dead or dying, her positioning of candles is a fine summation of her character.

Dingle Yardell is in good voice as the patrician Angelotti, limping and looking dishevelled after his imprisonment in the Castel Sant’Angelo. He is a good foil to Gwyn Hughes Jones’ Cavaradossi, an expansive character, in love with Tosca, but also an admirer of Angelotti and ready to aid and protect him. Hughes Jones and Romaniw are excellent in their duets, particularly the final one, coming so quickly after Cavaradossi has sung of his love for Tosca, with clarinet accompaniment.

There are other stand-out moments of orchestral playing – the bells in Act 3, for instance – and the chorus-work, particularly in the church, is good. Conductor Stuart Stratford and revival director Jonathan Cocker have breathed fresh life into this forty-year-old.

Text © Catriona Graham
Photo © James Glossop
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