![Angela Gheorghiu as Tosca and Massimo Giordano as Cavaradossi [Photo by Cory Weaver courtesy of San Francisco Opera]](http://www.operatoday.com/03--Tosca-G.gif)
23 Nov 2012
Tosca (Postscript) in San Francisco
Extraordinary diva, Angela Gheorghiu pulled out of opening night after act one. It was news when she made it to the end of the second performance. Here is what happened at the third performance.
Recently in Performances
ETO Autumn 2020 Season Announcement: Lyric Solitude
English Touring Opera are delighted to announce a season of lyric monodramas to tour nationally from October to December. The season features music for solo singer and piano by Argento, Britten, Tippett and Shostakovich with a bold and inventive approach to making opera during social distancing.
Love, always: Chanticleer, Live from London … via San Francisco
This tenth of ten Live from London concerts was in fact a recorded live performance from California. It was no less enjoyable for that, and it was also uplifting to learn that this wasn’t in fact the ‘last’ LfL event that we will be able to enjoy, courtesy of VOCES8 and their fellow vocal ensembles (more below …).
Dreams and delusions from Ian Bostridge and Imogen Cooper at Wigmore Hall
Ever since Wigmore Hall announced their superb series of autumn concerts, all streamed live and available free of charge, I’d been looking forward to this song recital by Ian Bostridge and Imogen Cooper.
Treasures of the English Renaissance: Stile Antico, Live from London
Although Stile Antico’s programme article for their Live from London recital introduced their selection from the many treasures of the English Renaissance in the context of the theological debates and upheavals of the Tudor and Elizabethan years, their performance was more evocative of private chamber music than of public liturgy.
A wonderful Wigmore Hall debut by Elizabeth Llewellyn
Evidently, face masks don’t stifle appreciative “Bravo!”s. And, reducing audience numbers doesn’t lower the volume of such acclamations. For, the audience at Wigmore Hall gave soprano Elizabeth Llewellyn and pianist Simon Lepper a greatly deserved warm reception and hearty response following this lunchtime recital of late-Romantic song.
The Sixteen: Music for Reflection, live from Kings Place
For this week’s Live from London vocal recital we moved from the home of VOCES8, St Anne and St Agnes in the City of London, to Kings Place, where The Sixteen - who have been associate artists at the venue for some time - presented a programme of music and words bound together by the theme of ‘reflection’.
Iestyn Davies and Elizabeth Kenny explore Dowland's directness and darkness at Hatfield House
'Such is your divine Disposation that both you excellently understand, and royally entertaine the Exercise of Musicke.’
Paradise Lost: Tête-à-Tête 2020
‘And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven … that old serpent … Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.’
Joyce DiDonato: Met Stars Live in Concert
There was never any doubt that the fifth of the twelve Met Stars Live in Concert broadcasts was going to be a palpably intense and vivid event, as well as a musically stunning and theatrically enervating experience.
‘Where All Roses Go’: Apollo5, Live from London
‘Love’ was the theme for this Live from London performance by Apollo5. Given the complexity and diversity of that human emotion, and Apollo5’s reputation for versatility and diverse repertoire, ranging from Renaissance choral music to jazz, from contemporary classical works to popular song, it was no surprise that their programme spanned 500 years and several musical styles.
The Academy of St Martin in the Fields 're-connect'
The Academy of St Martin in the Fields have titled their autumn series of eight concerts - which are taking place at 5pm and 7.30pm on two Saturdays each month at their home venue in Trafalgar Square, and being filmed for streaming the following Thursday - ‘re:connect’.
Lucy Crowe and Allan Clayton join Sir Simon Rattle and the LSO at St Luke's
The London Symphony Orchestra opened their Autumn 2020 season with a homage to Oliver Knussen, who died at the age of 66 in July 2018. The programme traced a national musical lineage through the twentieth century, from Britten to Knussen, on to Mark-Anthony Turnage, and entwining the LSO and Rattle too.
Choral Dances: VOCES8, Live from London
With the Live from London digital vocal festival entering the second half of the series, the festival’s host, VOCES8, returned to their home at St Annes and St Agnes in the City of London to present a sequence of ‘Choral Dances’ - vocal music inspired by dance, embracing diverse genres from the Renaissance madrigal to swing jazz.
Royal Opera House Gala Concert
Just a few unison string wriggles from the opening of Mozart’s overture to Le nozze di Figaro are enough to make any opera-lover perch on the edge of their seat, in excited anticipation of the drama in music to come, so there could be no other curtain-raiser for this Gala Concert at the Royal Opera House, the latest instalment from ‘their House’ to ‘our houses’.
Fading: The Gesualdo Six at Live from London
"Before the ending of the day, creator of all things, we pray that, with your accustomed mercy, you may watch over us."
Met Stars Live in Concert: Lise Davidsen at the Oscarshall Palace in Oslo
The doors at The Metropolitan Opera will not open to live audiences until 2021 at the earliest, and the likelihood of normal operatic life resuming in cities around the world looks but a distant dream at present. But, while we may not be invited from our homes into the opera house for some time yet, with its free daily screenings of past productions and its pay-per-view Met Stars Live in Concert series, the Met continues to bring opera into our homes.
Precipice: The Grange Festival
Music-making at this year’s Grange Festival Opera may have fallen silent in June and July, but the country house and extensive grounds of The Grange provided an ideal setting for a weekend of twelve specially conceived ‘promenade’ performances encompassing music and dance.
Monteverdi: The Ache of Love - Live from London
There’s a “slide of harmony” and “all the bones leave your body at that moment and you collapse to the floor, it’s so extraordinary.”
Music for a While: Rowan Pierce and Christopher Glynn at Ryedale Online
“Music for a while, shall all your cares beguile.”
A Musical Reunion at Garsington Opera
The hum of bees rising from myriad scented blooms; gentle strains of birdsong; the cheerful chatter of picnickers beside a still lake; decorous thwacks of leather on willow; song and music floating through the warm evening air.
OPERA TODAY ARCHIVES »
Performances
First and foremost Angela Gheorghiu is a diva. She holds the stage by the sheer force of her personality, like perhaps no other contemporary diva. The excitement she brought to the stage with her entrance was indeed palpable, and she played the first act softly, alternating coyness with temperament, interspersing a forceful high note from time to time, even a few entire phrases rang out. There was no doubt that this diva, Tosca, was high maintenance, that she was trouble. A diva who would in actual fact engage a powerful man — Scarpia. Her first act was a masterpiece, worth the price of admission.
Italian baritone Roberto Frontali however plays an insidious rather than a powerful Scarpia. In the first act his underhanded tactics to track Cavaradossi and entrap Tosca expose his truly perverse psyche. He begins the second act publicly proclaiming his consuming sadism. Downstage center, to all of us. No secrets.
But as the second act progressed there was a personality change in both Tosca and Scarpia. Tosca shed her temperament revealing a weak, vulnerable woman who had lived for her art, turning to and walking toward Scarpia, making her aria, softly, a pitiable confession, submitting to her tormentor. Scarpia however had become uncertain of his sadistic tools, his threats were absorbed into the retro scenery. He became palpably impotent. Mme. Gheorghiu, Tosca, the trapped victim, now became sly. Softly and perversely she was the insidious tormenter. You know what happened.
Conductor Nicola Luisotti played along, allowing an unusual orchestra continuum to percolate under this act that seemed nearly parlato (spoken) rather than sung. A highly unusual Tosca, Act II. Disquieting.
The third act is the Cavaradossi act, tenor Massimo Giordano brought out the turgid in Maestro Luisottii — huge, round orchestral tones that went nowhere. Giordano, who did made real tenorial noise upon rare occasion, nailed his high notes strangely, scooping up with a jump of a minor third. He evoked scattered applause for what is usually a show-stopper (e lucevan le stelle). La Gheorghiu, Tosca, entered, muttered her instructions softly, deftly acting non-stop (where was the singing?). You know what happened.
Tosca, la Gheorghiu, fled up the parapet, forgetting to shed her cloak and throw it at her pursuers who pretended she did and fell anyway. Then there was a very strange moment — you felt that Angela really did not want do that nasty jump. But she had to.
If you want a magnificent Tosca go to that of verismo diva Patricia Racette, if you want a gourmet, weird Tosca that of la Gheorghiu may fill the bill.
Michael Milenski
Cast and Production
Floria Tosca Act I: Angela Gheorghiu: Floria Tosca; Mario Cavaradossi: Massimo Giordano; Baron Scarpia: Roberto Frontali; Angelotti: Christian Van Horn; Spoletta: Joel Sorensen; Sacristan: Dale Travis; Sciarrone: Ao Li; Jailer: Ryan Kuster; Shepherd Boy: Etienne Julius Valdez. San Francisco Opera Orchestra and Chorus. Conductor: Nicola Luisotti; Stage Director: Jose Maria Condemi; Production Designer: Thierry Bosquet; Lighting Designer: Christopher Maravich. San Francisco War Memorial Opera House. November 21, 2012.