Last night the War Memorial Opera House once again opened to the public for the first time after eighteen months of hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The San Francisco Opera (SFO) began its 2021–22 season with a revival of Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca. This could not be a more appropriate selection. It was originally staged by Armando Agnini for the very first season in the fall of 1923. That production was then selected for the first SFO performance in the Opera House. The opera was then selected to launch the return of SFO to the Opera House in the fall of 1997 after having been closed for eighteen months due to earthquake retrofitting.
Last night’s return of SFO also marked the beginning of a new era under Music Director Eun Sun Kim. The production was directed by Shawna Lucey, whose staging was introduced as a new production in 2018. Soprano Ailyn Pérez made her role debut as Floria Tosca, a celebrated singer with an enthusiastic Roman audience. The other role debut was taken by bass-baritone Alfred Walker as the menacing Baron Scarpia. Tosca’s lover, the painter Mario Cavaradossi was sung by tenor Michael Fabiano, who had delivered a dynamite account of the title role of Giuseppe Verdi’s Don Carlo in June of 2016. He has been singing for SFO since the fall of 2011, and his most recent appearance was as the Chevalier des Grieux in Jules Massenet’s Manon in November of 2017.
Those who “know the score” probably know that the orchestra has the first word with a menacing chord progression that will emerge as Scarpia’s leitmotiv. (Yes, Richard Wagner was not the only composer to use this device. To Puccini’s credit, no one would confuse his score with any of Wagner’s operas.) The challenge to the conductor is to make sure that the orchestra does not fire all of its guns on the very first shot. The chord is there to get the audience’s attention but also to encourage them to dwell on what is about to happen. Indeed, after that chord concludes, the music launches into Cesare Angelotti’s attempt to escape from Scarpia, having just broken out of the latter’s prison. In other words the curtain rises on a Rome dominated by its Chief of Police while Napoleon is advancing his troops down the Italian peninsula.
Scarpia (Alfred Walker) being stabbed to death by Tosca (Ailyn Pérez) during the second act of Tosca (photograph by Cory Weaver, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera)
In this context Luigi Illica’s libretto weaves a love story between Tosca and Cavaradossi. Unfortunately, Cavaradossi is a friend of Angelotti and becomes an accomplice in the latter’s escape from Scarpia’s prison. Scarpia uses Tosca as a “falcon” to help him in hunting down Angelotti, and that hunt also leads to his arresting Cavaradossi. Furthermore, when she is not his “falcon,” Tosca is also the latest target of Scarpia’s lusts. This all makes for a rough ride through the second act, during which Cavaradossi is tortured and Tosca stabs Scarpia to death with his own knife. (Are we having fun yet?) By the time the opera has concluded, death has also taken Angelotti, Cavaradossi, and Tosca herself, leaping from the parapet of the Castel Sant’Angelo while singing text that can be loosely translated as “See you in Hell, Scarpia!”
As one might guess, Puccini’s score is a roller-coaster of wildly varying dispositions. Kim knew just how to lead the orchestra through that wild ride. (The end of the first act also includes a full chorus, prepared by Chorus Director Ian Robertson, who will be retiring at the end of the season. If last night was a “welcome back” occasion, the Chorus played a significant role in the welcoming!) Indeed, the relationship between what was happening in the orchestra pit and everything that Lucey conceived to take place on stage could not have been better. If the narrative is the spirit brought to life in Tosca, then one might say that the flesh of Lucey’s direction was consistently nourished by the blood of Kim’s musical leadership.
SFO has presented Tosca 188 times over the course of 41 previous seasons. My “first contact” with an SFO production was in September of 1997. Since then my feelings about the opera have tended to vary. Last night, however, I came away feeling that SFO could not have done a better job of welcoming opera lovers back to the Opera House.
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