The Metropolitan Opera relay as I have reported on all my visits provides an all round better experience than elsewhere because oft the ability to watch scenery being dismantled and moved around as well as the excellent live interviews with performers and technicians. On this occasion there was a bonus watching the former great conductor James Levine who had been with the Met for decades in rehearsal for Falstaff after his absence for over two years. He had retired after 50 years as a professional musician because of intense back pain. He was operated successfully to stop the pain but fortunately eh then ha d a much more damaging fall which rendered him into a wheelchair with almost no lower limb control however we physic therapy, hard work and a lot of support from family, friends and members of the public he is able to conduct again and watching the rehearsal we witnessed his intense professionalism and control. I had not planned to watch Falstaff because a comic opera is not my cup of tea despite is great ensemble singing. However I may go because just out of appreciate for his courage and determination and which I am sure will proving a great emotional experience for the audience as well as for him.
I have experienced a performance of Tosca from the Met before viewed on TV via their on line subscription player and was therefore aware of the story and that the opera contains a great Aria two by the male lead and one by Tosca in each of the three acts.
Tosca is played by Patricia Racette a mature substantial figure who although miss cast as the young innocent Madam Butterfly in Puccini’s Opera (which was one of my first experience of the Met relay back in 2009) has the emotional power and intensity in her singing which moved me to tears. As Tosca she had to give a sustained emotional force throughout, first a jealous woman threatened by what appears to be her lover’s attraction to another woman he had seen enter the church where he is suppose to be painting a Madonna and then fuelled by the evil commander of the French forces occupying Rome, who gives the impression that the woman has gone off with the lover to his secretary cottage in the grounds of the church.
There are strong chords between Tosca and the les Vepres Siciliennes, in that opera concerns an occupying power and a resistance movement in this instance led by Angelotti who we see escaping from prison, the Castel, del Angelo in Rome and which I have visited. He is hidden first in the church where he makes use of the meal left for the painter by the Sacriston. It emerges that woman who has come to pray had no interest in the painter but had come to leave clothing in the chapel, a dress and a fan so he could leave the city dressed as a woman with the fan hiding his features.
Unfortunately the alarm is sounded before the escape plan can be effected so the artist painter takes Angelloti to his cottage, mentioning that there is a well with half way down a passage to small cave. In the rush he leaves the fan which belonged to the sister and has the family crest. This is found by the ruthless governor Scarpia played by the Baritone George Gagnidre to brilliant effect. He persuades Tosca to go off in search of her alleged miscreant lover followed by one of his men who sees where the artist is located but when they arrive the escaped prisoner cannot be found so they arrest the painter played by the great tenor Roberto Alagna who I last saw in the Met Carmen and who is playing this role in the Christmas New Year production at the ROH which I will experiencing in person in the New Year and where the tickets arrived last week.
I felt his voice has become stronger and richer than previously although it may be more to do with the nature of the two roles and his two arias brought the house down as they say such was his emotional power. Scarpia then has Tosca also brought to the palace where he is seen being entertained by three women to commercial virtue and where he plots to use the situation of power to possess Tosca. He openly sings that his interest is only one of lust and that once achieved he likes to move on, rather like former President Kennedy who got a headache if he did not have sex with a new woman everyday. In this instance Scarpia preferred situation where he took women against their will and in Tosca is his best challenge to date because of her spiritual strength she sings in the Cathedral choir as well as commitment to one man and intolerance of unfaithfulness. He ensure she is a witness to the torturing of her lover and then offers them freedom if she accepts his lust. He explains to that the lover will be shot but this will be a fake as the guns will fire blanks and he tells his henchman to undertake a similar execution to a previous occasion. What Tosca does not know is that the previous execution was also a fatal one presented as a fake to get his way with someone else.
She yields up the hiding place to the despair of her lover. Angelotti is reported to have committed suicide rather than be captured.
After Scarpia signs the release warrant Tosca chances on a knife and stabs the lecher to death. She visits the jail as requested earlier and explains what is to happen to her lover and that he must pretend to be dead and not move until the soldiers leave. To her horror she finds that he has been killed and this coincides with the discovery of the body of Scarpia. Rather than face capture she throws herself off the battlements to her death. This proved to be one of the great operas an amazingly I then discovered there is to be a performance locally at the Sunderland Empire next April
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