José de Eça as Cavaradossi in Tosca 2024 Opera Holland Pk
Opera Holland Park has opened the season with Puccini's operatic blockbuster Tosca.
I attended night two of OHP's Tosca run where part of the stage had been transformed into a back street of Rome. Church and trattoria coexisted alongside each other, the church serving as haven to escaped political prisoners, the cafe as political HQ to power-hungry police chief, Scarpia.
In this modernised staging of Tosca, taken from Stephen Barlow's 2008 production of Tosca at OHP, we are reminded that Puccini's opera is both a gripping political drama as well as well as a love story. In the opening scene, Scarpia's headshots stared out at us from a mass of different political posters plastered on the church wall. It's 1968, mid-election, and the political violence in the streets is increasing. Who will fill the political void?
In this production, political drama and personal drama, played out on different parts of the OHP stage, which is shaped like a pair of lips with orchestral pit in the middle . On the top stage, or 'top lip', we saw the street, the activities around the church and trattoria - and if there were important arias to emphasise, the singers came down to the 'bottom lip' of the stage to commune with the audience.
There was a problem however with the Tosca-Scarpia scene which is a key moment in the opera. Tosca's lover Cavaradossi had been captured by Scarpia's men and agonised cries emerged from the back of the trattoria. Opera productions tend to place this tense encounter, between Tosca and the police chief, in his boudoir at the Farnese Palace. This is where he prepares to seduce Tosca with honeyed words and propose a sexual wager - Cavaradossi's freedom in exchange for her body. Unfortunately in the OHP production, this all-important scene unrolled on the upper stage, farthest from the audience, at a cafe table.
Did Stephen Barlow, in his production, want to cut down on what he considered to be the melodrama in the scene? When, on the night, Tosca stabbed Scarpia and unsentimentally dragged his body into the cafe out of sight I wasn't expecting it - and perhaps that made the scene more shocking.
That aside, the production was magnificent, buoyed by the quality of the singers and orchestra.
Amanda Echalaz was reprising the Tosca she had sung in 2008 at OHP! Since then, she has taken the much-coveted soprano role all over the world. In interview for this present Tosca, she talked about giving her character a more "mature take" as it had been sixteen years or so since she had debuted in the role at OHP.
In the opening scene, Echalaz was striking as the older woman. Striking and a tad intimidating as she towered over her lover Cavaradossi painting the Madonna on the church floor. She was decked out in high sixties fashion, the iconic white boots, wide-brimmed hat placed low over her face and long coat. José de Eça in contrast, as Cavaradossi, was quite a picture in his worn suede jacket and orange shirt and casual jeans, and dismissive of her haughty demeanour. Her fiery outburst as she noticed that the Madonna had blue eyes, not brown (like her own,) displayed not only the vanity of the diva but the distress of the older woman spurned.
Portuguese tenor, de Eça, made a fine young Cavaradossi. His tenor voice swelled in confidence, like his character, so that when he sang 'E lucevan le stelle' in Act 3, I was left thinking that this was a tenor to watch out for in the future. Echalaz was excellent in her "mature" Tosca role, as was Morgan Pearse, singing a whimsical, but cold Scarpia, in his incisive tone . Edwin Kaye as the revolutionary Angelotti, stood out with his powerful bass.
City of London Sinfonia were superb as they continued their fantastic run at OHP (20 years it's been) and the tragic finale was probably the best in opera I've seen for a while.
KH
Remaining performances: June 1, 7, 12, 15, 18, 22 June at 7.30pm. 9th of June at 2pm (Discovery Matinee, audio-described and Relaxed Performance
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