Tosca
English National Opera, in rep until 10 July
La Fille du régiment
The Royal Opera, in rep until 3 June
Tosca has had several new productions at ENO in the past 20 years which have proved rapidly perishable. It’ll be interesting to see whether the new production, with set designs by Frank Philipp Schlössmann and the direction in the hands of Catherine Malfitano, proves more durable, though I think it is certain that one major modification will be effected.
The opening chords, giving the audience a pretty vivid impression of what it would be like to be a torture victim of Scarpia’s, were tremendous, immensely loud and crushing, and throughout the evening the chief source of my pleasure was in the orchestral playing. I don’t think I have ever heard the ENO orchestra on finer form, and in the past couple of years, under Edward Gardner, standards have noticeably risen. What I found much less satisfying was the shaping of musical phrases into paragraphs, or even sentences. Gardner tends to fall in love with particular chords or passages, revels in their colours, but fails to join them up. In this opera, the predominant impression of which should be urgency, tending towards panic, it is fatal to have the feeling that we are constantly pausing to take breath, but that was how it seemed. Puccini does scatter detailed instructions over his scores, but they must be borne along on the flood.
Not that Gardner and his performers stuck to the composer’s instructions bar for bar. Yet again I have to point out that Cavaradossi’s opening short aria, ‘Recondita armonia’, is marked, both in the vocal and the orchestral parts, dolcissimo and pianissimo throughout. Cavaradossi is musing wonderingly on the strange harmony of diverse beauties, but who would guess it from the fortissimo gusto with which Julian Gavin belted it out, abetted by Gardner? No doubt it is easier to sing it like that, but on the rare occasions when anyone takes notice of Puccini the effect is much more striking.
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