Old-school excess, star power and spectacle: Royal Opera’s Tosca reviewed

London felt like its old self on Friday night. Possibly it was just me; when you visit the capital once a week, your impressions will only ever be snapshots. Still, it’s been a while since I’ve battled such a flood tide of commuters on the ramp at Euston, or since the Royal Opera House seemed to be buzzing quite so excitedly. Crowds were four deep at the champagne bar; a latecomer in a spangly tux squeezed past and into his seat, grinning a slightly tipsy apology. And at the heart of it all — the succulent hunk of well-aged rump steak generating all this sizzle — was a revival of Jonathan Kent’s lavish period staging of Puccini’s Tosca, with a marquee name in the title role.

That’d be Angela Gheorghiu, who headlined this production when it first appeared in 2006. Kent’s Tosca succeeded Zeffirelli’s, and Gheorghiu — then at the peak of her vocal glamour — was stepping into the shoes of Maria Callas.