TOSCA • OPERA BASTILLE PARIS
★★★★☆☆
Photo: Elisa Haberer
REVIEW TOSCA IN PARIS: THE FINALE NO ONE ASKED FOR
The Bastille Opera’s revival of Tosca is a beautiful, faithful, and effective production of Puccini’s beloved thriller opera. But what exactly is going on with Pierre Audi’s finale? The iconic tower of the Castel d’Angelo is replaced by a pancake-flat, burnt-down battlefield. Why?
Photo: Elisa Haberer
Adam Smith is a scoop as the free-thinking painter Cavaradossi in his critically acclaimed Paris debut – even though the acoustics of the Bastille Opera give him a slightly sharper sound than is good for him.
Photo: Elisa Haberer
Elena Stikhina delivers Tosca with magnificent vocals and dramatic authority, while Alexey Markov is mean as hell in the role of Scarpia – traditionally equipped with a leather cape and sinister henchmen.
The production dates from 2014 and has since presented Parisian audiences with a string of opera stars: Netrebko, Alagna, Kaufmann, Calleja, Tézier, Terfel, and many more.
The set design is classic and symbolic, with a huge concrete cross as a recurring element – the heavy shadow of religion and authority.
Photo: Elisa Haberer
After a Te Deum that could have been more powerful, the classic blackmail scene in the Palazzo Farnese follows. Scarpia tortures Cavaradossi until Tosca agrees to sex. Vissi d’Arte is spot on, but Scarpia has changed into a light gray suit and looks like a friendly office manager who could have been dealt with with a French kiss.
Photo: Elisa Haberer
For Tosca fans who want to see the opera as they know and love it, everything is as it should be. A traditional, high-quality production without any major surprises. But then something suddenly happens.
Photo: Elisa Haberer
The third act stands out by NOT taking place at the top of Engelsborg, but on a miserable battlefield with charred trees, where a platoon of soldiers dressed in white around a makeshift tent are about to execute Cavaradossi, and it turns out that Scarpia gets the last word after all.
Adam Smith receives the evening’s biggest applause with a poignant Lucevan le Stelle. Wow, how the stars twinkled – and the tears flowed.
The battlefield obviously refers to the opera’s historical background, including the Battle of Marengo, where French troops first lose but then turn the war around with a comeback that forces the Austrians out of Italy. A victory that will dismantle Scarpia’s power and which, incidentally, has had a chicken dish named after it.
But Audi’s move ends up being a dud.
The unconventional setting, which one would hardly have expected from the usually more conventional Pierre Audi, is interesting but flat as a pancake – and it ends up completely unresolved, as Tosca, for good reason, has nothing to jump to her death from, but must simply call on her god with her arms stretched above her head as the soldiers rush in in pursuit of Scarpia’s murderer – and the lights go out.
An innovative but unnecessarily misplaced move that adds nothing and would have been better left out. It costs a star, and GOT TO SEE THIS herefore lands on four out of five for a beautiful but somewhat routine performance with a finale that no one asked for.
