Yesterday afternoon at the War Memorial Opera House, the San Francisco Opera presented the second of nine performances of Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca. As has already been observed, this opera has an “extensive and impressive history” in SFO programming. Indeed, with few exceptions, until this season the basic decor and approach to staging have been pretty much the same as when the opera was first performed by SFO in 1923; and there is good reason to believe that Armando Agnini’s staging was informed by that of the opera’s first presentation in Rome on January 14, 1900.
This season SFO invited Shawna Lucey to bring a fresh view of the work to the War Memorial Opera House. Lucey made her SFO debut a little over year ago, when she reconstructed John Copley’s staging of Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata. Tosca is thus her first opportunity to work entirely with her own ideas, based on new sets designed by Robert Innes Hopkins. For the most part she held to the basic structure of the narrative without trying to force “new concepts” into awkward fits. Nevertheless, she introduced some innovative points of view that allowed for some alternative perspectives on the overall narrative.
The most evident of these was her decision to make the Marchesa Attavanti an explicit member of the cast. Since the Marchesa is only mentioned in the libretto and never sings, this was a mimed role taken by Tatiana Bookbinder. We know her best as the object of Tosca’s jealousy, provoked by Mario Cavaradossi having used her for the image of the Madonna he is painting. (Since Cavaradossi was working in the church sanctuary, he could observe her at prayer from a distance.)
However, she is also an accomplice of the escaped prisoner Cesare Angelotti; and, while the first act ends with the celebration of a Te Deum service (during which Baron Scarpia delivers that chilling line, “Tosca, you make me forget God”), Lucey supplemented that coda with Scarpia arresting Attavanti for “questioning” over Angelotti’s escape. When the curtain rises for the second act in Scarpia’s chambers, that “questioning” has just concluded; and, on the basis of how Attavanti leaves the room, we can guess that the occasion involved more than questioning! In the context of the overall narrative, these may seem like minor events; but they throw a useful light on libretto texts that only relate, rather than present.
In Lucey’s first encounter with staging Tosca for SFO, Italian soprano Carmen Giannattasio was performing the title role for the first time in the impressive resume she has built up since winning the 2002 Operalia competition in Paris. She brought a commanding presence to the role, entirely consistent with the character she was playing and the tectonic shifts in personality that unfold over the course of the opera’s three acts. Under Lucey’s direction, Giannattasio never had to worry about superficial busy work, meaning that she could deliver a solid vocal performance in which every expressive gesture was consistent with the underlying narrative. In that respect she was perfectly matched with Brian Jagde’s Cavaradossi, who is well on the way to establishing himself as a major Puccini tenor that is not only authoritative but also consistently expressive, always in tune with the rhetoric behind the music he sings.
The only real weakness in yesterday’s performance came from baritone Scott Hendricks’ account of Scarpia. This was evident from the first glimpse of his physical frame, which suggested that he did not have the substance to fill Scarpia’s shoes (literally, as well as figuratively). That suggestion was subsequently warranted by a vocal delivery that fell short of what just about any fan of the opera would have expected. By the end of the first act, I realized that he was reminding me of Pete Campbell, the schemer from Mad Men who never manages to rise above the level of pipsqueak.
Carmen Giannattasio as Tosca and Scott Hendricks as Scarpia (photograph by Cory Weaver, courtesy of San Francisco Opera)
However, things changed a bit during the second act when Scarpia sheds his imposing uniform for more “casual” attire. Perhaps I have been watching too much television lately; but it was hard to shake the feeling that, perhaps through hairpiece, makeup, and convincing acting skills, Hendricks had settled on the appearance of Brett Kavanaugh to get “in character” for his performance. This may all have been coincidence; but, at the very least, I am willing to believe that the idea of situating Tosca in a “Me Too” situation may have been a key motive in Lucey’s approach to the staging.
The other significant debut in this production was that of Leo Hussain as conductor. Hussain has built up a solid reputation in leading a diverse repertoire of operas. However, his reputation is just as solid in instrumental performance, where he has particular interest in the Second Viennese School and later generations of twentieth-century composers. (I cannot resist inserting a Second Viennese School “connection” at this point. When I was reading The Doctor Faustus Dossier, I could not resist making note of what may be the only quote from Arnold Schoenberg about Puccini: “Puccini? Isn’t he the one who pre-impersonated Lehár?”)
Hussain was never shy when it came to Puccini’s boldest instrumental gestures (and there are plenty of them). On the other hand he was equally sensitive to when a more nuanced approach was required. There was one particularly delicate duo passage in which his chemistry with both Giannattasio and Jagde could not have been more on the money. Most importantly, Hussain always had a solid account of the overall flow of each act. If Puccini was never shy about brash instrumental outbursts, Hussain always knew where the real climaxes were, making sure that they would always rise above those “lesser peaks.” (Thank you, Pierre Boulez!) He is clearly a conductor who is as much at home with a concert orchestra as he is in working with opera singers on a stage, and I hope that we in San Francisco get more opportunities to experience his work.
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