Leap of faith pays off with Puccini

AMERICAN director Christopher Alden’s 2002 reworking of Puccini’s early favourite is a passionate, brutal affair that has as many detractors as admirers.

There is no final leap to death for “Tosca”, the great first act Te Deum is sung to the glory of the Italian Lottery rather than to God, and the whole thing takes place in a rather tawdry church anteroom with fluorescent lights and an ugly little sacristan’s office on one side and a great, beautifully-lit window on the other.

While this gives this revival a direct, fast-moving look without the need for set changing, it does mean that, for example, Scorpio’s body lies on the floor until the end of the opera, despite events after his death, and no-one seems to notice.

All becomes a little clearer — maybe too strong a word — when you understand that some of what is going on is takes place in the minds of the characters.

But forget this and let the evening wash over you, and this is a stunningly good “Tosca”.

The evening is driven by a terrific conductor, Andrea Licata, who is new to the UK but who pushes the superb Opera North orchestra and chorus to even greater heights — which is saying something.

The music’s passion and forcefulness draws the best, too, from Chicago’s black soprano, Takesha Meshe Kizart.

Hers is not a particularly beautiful voice and has a tendency to lazy enunciation, but it has the power to match the orchestra in full forte passages and still come out the winner.

And she acts terrifically too, pouring emotion and contempt into her second-act losing duel with Scarpia.

Tenor Rafael Rojas is equally passionate as lover Cavaradossi, his tone direct in his opening aria and not a lot less so his final one. In between, his is a voice than can sound a little rough at times, but there is no denying its overall effect.

Top praise of the production goes to Robert Hayward as Scarpia.

His voice is a little too mellow at times, but Hayward acts his socks off, making Scarpia not simply the sadistic police chief but something of an obsessive pervert too, his lust for Tosca more clearly and coldly delineated than I have ever seen it before.

This is not a “Tosca” for those who simply like the tunes, but as a total production, it is like no other. PG