Kristof Loy’s ‘Tosca’ Doesn’t Play Down the Brutality (And That’s a Good Thing)
A review of ‘Tosca’, at the London Coliseum.
‘I guess Tosca isn’t for everyone,’ says Mr. White, as the panicked Quantum members flee an opera house in Austria. In probably the strongest scene from the rather disappointing Quantum of Solace, James Bond breaks up a meeting that takes place during a performance of Puccini’s tale. The parallels between what is happening in the story and what is happening off-stage are obvious. On the stage, Scarpia and his police plan a killing at a church service; in the stalls, Quantum plan killings at the opera.
You will probably know the story of Tosca. Baron Scarpia, the corrupt chief of police in Rome, suspects the artist Cavaradossi of hiding a political prisoner. He has also taken a shine to Cavaradossi’s lover, the diva Floria Tosca (by diva I mean a celebrated opera singer, not a Mariah-Carey, I-only-shower-with-Evian-water type). So Scarpia hatches a plan: to manipulate Tosca into revealing her lover’s whereabouts, killing or incarcerating him, and then having her for himself.
Baron Scarpia, the corrupt chief of police in Rome, suspects the artist Cavaradossi of hiding a political prisoner
Tosca, then, is a story of political intrigue and jealousy, with a bit of torture, murder and suicide thrown in, and all of this is set against a backdrop of revolution. Wearing a velvet black dress I had really been dying to wear, I caught the English National Opera’s take at the London Coliseum — a take faithful to the brutality of the tale and in fact, one in which director Kristof Loy plays up the nastiness and threatening emotional atmosphere.
To get the context across, Loy turns to design, giving Cavaradossi (Adam Smith) and the political prisoner Angelotti (Msimelelo Mbali) mid-20th century suits, and the monarchists, including Scarpia (Noel Bouley), Napoleonic age get-up, complete with tricorn hats. We get it: monarchy is the past; republicanism, the future. Loy thus underlines the divide in beliefs that puts the characters at odds. Scarpia lives in a world in which power and fear are ruling ideas. For Cavaradossi and Tosca, love reigns supreme. This conflict, as Puccini shows within his story, runs through religion, too: it is both a means of oppression and a source of comfort.
Scarpia lives in a world in which power and fear are ruling ideas. For Cavaradossi and Tosca, love reigns supreme.
As Solzhenitsyn teaches us, good and evil run through the individual soul as well. For Floria Tosca (Sinéad Campbell-Wallace) is jealous enough to find Scarpia credible, and so she straddles both these worlds, changing from a New Look dress into 18th-century clothing, and then to a red trench during the climactic scene. We are reminded that she is the story: that the drama all around her and of which she is a part is a reflection if not a manifestation of her fiery inner life. She is, after all, an opera singer. She must, to borrow from Whitman, be vast, contain multitudes.
Sinéad brings nuance to this role, when it must be tempting to play Tosca, an opera singer, as merely a bit histrionic. Adam Smith, in support, plays Cavaradossi as a convincingly dashing idealist, in rolled up sleeves and open waistcoat even if, at times, he looks more like a waiter at the end of his shift than a romantic revolutionary. Scarpia (played by Noel Bouley on opening night while Roland Wood sang from the side of the stage) was particularly impressive: larger than life, credibly villainous and excellent at lip-synching. He should do drag.
Take it all in all, then it was a good production, remaining faithful to tradition while reforming in creative and effective ways. I cannot say I see much opera, but after Tosca, I might see a bit more.
