Tom Strini
Review

The Florentine’s Tosca

By - Nov 21st, 2009 01:05 am

Noele Stollmack’s new, spartan set — a mostly bare, steeply raked stage, with one panel for projections — for the Florentine Opera‘s latest Tosca had its hits and misses. Mainly, it demonstrated how little difference a set makes for Puccini’s potboiler. With flocked wallpaper or with no walls at all, as we had at Friday evening, Tosca is an over-the-top melodrama about over-the-top singing.

Giacomo Puccini

Giacomo Puccini

The main problem with the design is the sharp angle of the rake. It is so steep that when the jailer put down his lantern in Act 3, it slid down the slope a couple of feet. Almost every cast member showed some tentative balance. Tenor Renzo Zulian, as Cavaradossi, was exceedingly careful on the ladder in the mural-painting scene in Act 1, and I don’t blame him. The whole thing was leaning toward the audience because of the uneven footing. The legs on that ladder should have been rebuilt longer on the downside. Zulian was clearly worried about it and so was I, and neither of us should have been thinking about that damned ladder while he was singing.

But the set did make for some wonderful stage pictures. The “Te Deum” procession, a solemn hesitation-step on the diagonal with a lane of lighted candles, was stunning. And two grates, suggesting a torture chamber below Scarpia’s lair, made for some striking blood-red light effects.

Stage director Dean Anthony used the wide-open playing space for an unusually physical and convincing stabbing scene between Cynthia Lawrence’s Tosca and Todd Thomas’ Scarpia. They threw themselves into Anthony’s well-conceived stage combat while singing. That’s not easy.

I wish Anthony had been just as realistic with the love duet in Act 3 for Lawrence and Zulian. The guy has been tortured and has spent the night in chains on a stone floor. You could play that scene out as if he barely has the strength to stand, which would have avoided the parade of clichéd clinches we saw Friday.

All three principals sang with the kind of spinto power that makes you feel the effort of singing. That is not especially to my taste, but it is part of the style of this opera. That sort of singing lays a sheen of heroism on the singers as much as the characters. It’s why Puccini operas get more standing ovations than Mozart operas.

Todd Thomas doesn’t have the sort of sustained, building aria that his colleagues have. The Scarpia role is all about a sustained, glowering intensity at any volume, and he nailed that. Vocally and dramatically, he played the corrupt baron as an out-and-out sociopath, which is better than the sensual, sadistic, bon vivant we’ve seen before at the Florentine.

I’ve always thought of Tosca as an overwrought bimbo, and Cynthia Lawrence did not change my view of the character. That said, she sang intelligently, with a particularly smart measuring of energy and intensity of “Vissi d’arte,” one of the greatest arias of all. I didn’t so much like her blaring way with crescendi or the brassy edge in her higher range. Better those flaws than timid singing, though; Tosca has to be in your face, and Lawrence was in  your face.

Zulian was fabulous. Like Lawrence, he built his big arias with a sure eye for their mountaintops. His clear, consistent, ringing tone and dead-eye pitch made his sound exciting. He is a natural Cavaradossi to begin with, and he has cultivated and refined his gift for the role.

It took conductor Joseph Rescigno and his singers about 20 minutes to get on the same wave length, but after that pacing and coordination were impeccable. The Milwaukee Symphony was in the pit and played very well. These days, they always do.

Puccini’s Tosca, sung in Italian with English supertitles, will be performed again at 7:30 p.m. Saturday and at 2:30 p.m. Sunday at Marcus Center Uihlein Hall. For tickets, call the Marcus box office, 414-273-7206.

For a preview story on this production, click here.

Other reviews: Elaine Schmidt.

0 thoughts on “Review: The Florentine’s Tosca”

  1. Anonymous says:

    Thank you.
    RRW

  2. Anonymous says:

    I think Cynthia Lawrence was a miscast. She’s been a great Lady Macbeth and will make a great Turandot if she ever gets to sing the role, but her voice is way too brassy for Tosca. Objectively speaking, though, she does sing very well. And one also has to keep in mind Florentine’s budget limitations: putting together a cast like this is a big accomplishment.

  3. Anonymous says:

    I just realized what a complete narcissist Tosca was tonight. Wow. Unlikeable character, especially in the first act. I thought she sang better in the 2nd act.

    That rake was steep, but I was on one in FLUTE a few years ago at DuPage Opera that was so steep and so precarious that the Papageno pretty much blew his entire fee on chiropractic care post-show.

  4. Anonymous says:

    I loved it all. What a bodice ripper and I think I’m in love with Cavaradossi. The Sunday matinee crowd booed mightily when Scarpia emerged for his curtain call…did anyone notice that Cavaradossi was a leftie when he sat down in prison to pen a farewell to Floria?

  5. Anonymous says:

    Thanks for commenting everyone. — Tom

  6. Anonymous says:

    I was worried about that ladder also!
    I thought it was a stunning second and third act and they got a well-deserved SO on Saturday night. (Plus the boos for Scarpia – probably even more fulfilling than a standing ovation!).

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