United Kingdom Puccini, Tosca: Soloists, Refrain, Youngsters’s Refrain and Orchestra of the Royal Opera Home / Jakub Hrůša (conductor). Filmed (directed for the display by Peter Jones) on the Royal Opera Home, Covent Backyard, in September 2025 and broadcast to Cineworld Basildon, Essex, 1.10.2025. (JPr)
It’s in all probability extra apocryphal than not, however like London buses you possibly can look forward to one star-studded Tosca to come back alongside after which there are two. After reviewing the 665th efficiency of Margarethe Wallmann’s 67-year-old manufacturing (evaluation right here) I questioned might this new Tosca from The Royal Opera match such a wonderful efficiency. That it definitely – and for me, unexpectedly – did! Oliver Mears is Director of Opera at Covent Backyard and his new Tosca replaces Jonathan Kent’s 2006 manufacturing which was serviceable sufficient and matched the libretto of Puccini’s opera while having some points, notably a really cluttered Act I. With Mears and his set designer Simon Lima Holdsworth, we’re not spending at some point in Rome in 1800 however are actually within the second half of the 20 th century with Cavaradossi serving to renovated a church which has suffered broken from some shelling. Certainly, in the course of the ‘Te Deum’ clergy and worshippers appear to be taking shelter from the sounds of bombing within the distance. A lot of that is at odds, after all, with all of the speak of Napoleon, Melas and Marengo we are going to hear about.
Tosca is about artwork and politics and this new manufacturing had accreted sufficient of that for causes I received’t fear about right here, aside from it involving Anna Netrebko’s return to singing at Covent Backyard for the primary time since April 2019. This was sufficient to not have Mears’s Act I set in Ukraine and what battle has prompted all this destruction isn’t completely clear now. There may be sufficient of the white marble partitions, spectacular columns and arches of a church proven to permit Act I to play out oddly historically.
A Roman church it might need been in Act I – albeit Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza apparently and never Sant’Andrea della Valle – however for the second act we’re definitely not in Scarpia’s Pallazzo Farnese residence. Scarpia seems to have requisitioned some authorities constructing with (once more) plain marble partitions with a clock on excessive and large bronze doorways. The partitions permit Fabiana Piccioli’s lighting to solid some foreboding shadows. There may be little else aside from a few chairs, one with wheels that Scarpia glides round on (consuming his takeaway meal from a tin foil tray), a central lengthy, naked marble plinth, a TV so Scarpia can watch executions and an ash tray on a tall stand (extra about that later). The clock exhibits the time shifting from previous 11pm in direction of midnight however is it sufficient time for all that goes on on this act, such because the seek for the escaped prisoner Angelotti, Cavardossi’s torture and Scarpia forcing himself on Tosca?
For Act III we’re not on the Castel Sant’Angelo ramparts however in a starkly-lit, enclosed room within the headquarters of the key – or not so secret – police who perform Scarpia’s orders. By the window it appears like St Peter’s Basilica. A prisoner enters at hand over his belongings, then signal his life away earlier than being summarily shot towards the tiled wall with the ensuing blood spatter mopped away earlier than Cavaradossi is introduced in. It’s considerably at odds with Scarpia saying there must be an ‘execution’ as it’s all carried out in such privateness. In a single nook there’s a CCTV digital camera and absolutely Tosca and Cavaradossi is likely to be being watched and overheard as they plan their getaway. Admittedly Scarpia presumably informed his minions to not disturb him and Tosca, however I (at all times) marvel why it takes so lengthy to find he has been killed. Right here Tosca takes a chair, smashes a window and plunges out.
In my latest Vienna evaluation I wrote how it might not be the final time I might point out how a memorable Tosca requires three singing-actors to create plausible characters to attract you into the very – very – acquainted story via their vocal energy and dramatic artistry, making you are feeling you’re watching the opera for the primary time. It bought that in Vienna from a Russian soprano, Chilean-American tenor and French baritone and in London we had a distinct Russian soprano, British-Italian tenor and Canadian bass-baritone!
Extra about The Royal Opera’s new Music Director, Jakub Hrůša, later however the fantastic efficiency was marred just a bit by him indulging his singers and permitting them at hand onto high notes for an eternity, in addition to stopping for applause. Freddie De Tommaso was very spectacular in his can belto style, ‘Recondita armonia’ was fairly declamatory, while Cavaradossi’s ode to Tosca’s darkish eyes had an actual sense of poetry and all through there was nice chemistry between him and Netrebko’s Tosca which led to this pair of lovers being much more affectionate than we typically see, Madonna or no Madonna. Later, you possibly can definitely see why the full-on assault Tosca suffers from Scarpia wanted an ‘Intimacy director’. De Tommaso held on inordinately to the highest C of ‘Vittoria! Vittoria!’ however a superbly phrased ‘E lucevan le stelle’ had completely the correct amount of despair and remorse.
Gerald Finley’s moustachioed Scarpia was a sweaty, unattractive, sexually pissed off, unlovable man who might solely make girls do his bidding by coercing them via power and the specter of violence. This Scarpia regarded extra a gray (matching his double-breasted go well with) bureaucrat than chief of police however his complete authority got here from his place within the hierarchy of the regime in energy. He doesn’t get his palms soiled himself (and he continuously wipes them on a handkerchief anyway) so it’s Spoletta who wraps his tie around the Sacristan’s neck to make him speak. Finley introduced little of the air of civility both in voice or manner – we all know is simply pretence – which some singers carry to the function. His Scarpia was compellingly sung and acted regardless of being one thing of a caricature; part- Basil Fawlty (John Cleese) and Jim (Mark Heap) in Friday Night time Dinner.
It might be too simple to say Netrebko was enjoying herself – when she swanned in stilettoed with a black veil and carrying a shocking crimson costume – as a result of once you consider a ‘conventional diva’ in 2025 her identify is likely to be high of the listing. This was regardless of her picture as Tosca coming straight from Italian movies of the Nineteen Fifties and 60s. It was spectacular how Netrebko by no means stepped out of character all through the opera and Tosca was a creature of ardour, completely satisfied to be love, and simply not as jealous or insecure as some could be. Netrebko’s voice took a bit time to heat up (nerves can be comprehensible) however rose from contralto-like depths to its resplendent high of thrilling energy and brilliance. The showstopping ‘Visse d’arte’ was suitably prayerful and revealed appreciable sorrow about Tosca’s plight.
Now about that pedestal ashtray, properly, there was no stabbing and Tosca’s bludgeoning of Scarpia with it was impressively staged earlier than the coup de grâce together with her jewelled hairpin. Netrebko spat out Tosca’s phrases ‘E avanti a lui tremava tutta Roma!’ bitterly, however there was some forgiveness as she put his jacket on his physique together with the bouquet she initially introduced in initially of the act. Within the last scene Netrebko’s Tosca is completely deluded and whereas she believes there will likely be a contented ending for her and Cavaradossi, De Tommaso’s face reveals he is aware of that is solely her self-delusion.
A wonderful ensemble – although with maybe not sufficient British singers – noticed splendid vignettes from Ossian Huskinson’s fleeing Angelotti, Alessandro Corbelli’s grumbly, fussy, gluttonous Sacristan, Carlo Bosi’s fearfully compliant Spoletta and Esmae Froud’s plaintive Younger Shepherd.
How was the efficiency total then? Within the phrases of Oliver Mears: ‘Try to be on the sting of your seats; you need to be gripped. It needs to be visceral, highly effective and it ought to get you within the guts, that’s what I want Tosca to be.’ And that’s what it certainly was …and did!
Jakub Hrůša – who was conducting performances of Tosca for the primary time – spoke about how ‘Everybody working in the home is tremendously proficient, however my function is to carry these skills collectively, to unify them in a really cooperative method to encourage them to offer their greatest.’ That he positively did too, whether or not soloists, refrain or orchestra. What we heard sounded recent, vivid and thrilling and every thing you’d count on from Puccini’s ‘shabby little shocker’.
Jim Pritchard
Featured Picture: Gerald Finley (Scarpia) in Tosca Act I © Marc Brenner
Creatives:
Director – Oliver Mears
Set designer – Simon Lima Holdsworth
Costume designer – Ilona Karas
Lighting designer – Fabiana Piccioli
Motion and Intimacy director – Anna Morrissey
Refrain director – William Spaulding
Forged:
Floria Tosca – Anna Netrebko
Mario Cavaradossi – Freddie De Tommaso
Baron Scarpia – Gerald Finley
Spoletta – Carlo Bosi
Cesare Angelotti – Ossian Huskinson
Sacristan – Alessandro Corbelli
Sciarrone – Siphe Kwani
Gaoler – Olle Zetterström
Younger Shepherd – Esmae Froud
Actors – David Galea, Suleiman Suleiman, James Unsworth, Charlie Venables, Addis Williams
