Body language | 25 January 2018

One of the Royal Opera’s greatest virtues is the care it takes with its revivals, even those that are virtually annuals, such as Jonathan Kent’s Tosca, the unnecessary replacement for Zeffirelli’s classic production. Kent’s version, with elaborate sets by the much-missed Paul Brown, was unveiled in 2006 and now has its ninth revival. It is a sloppy affair — three stars thrown together on the stage and told to get on with it.

Since there is plenty of furniture around, and two precipitous flights of stairs, that isn’t as easy as it would be in any other UK production. When movements onstage are as haphazard as they were on the first night, one realises how physical a piece Tosca is, with entrances, exits, claspings of assorted kinds, all significant and crucial for sustaining tension. Andrew Sinclair, the revival director, seems to have been negligent. Act I was a connoisseur’s item of tedium, enhanced by the weird conducting of Dan Ettinger, who seemed obsessed with introducing punctuation into the music and drama, or waiting for applause, which was usually not forthcoming.