{"id":24134,"date":"2021-08-28T19:25:31","date_gmt":"2021-08-29T02:25:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/?p=24134"},"modified":"2021-10-05T10:14:20","modified_gmt":"2021-10-05T17:14:20","slug":"tosca","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/tosca\/","title":{"rendered":"Tosca: a review by Victor Cordell"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Alfred Walker as Scarpia (lower left) and chorus. All photos by Cory Weaver.<\/p><\/div>\n

Has any other opera been so strongly associated with the birth and rebirth of a grand opera house and its resident company?\u00a0 From its inception by founder Gaetano Merola, San Francisco Opera has had a love affair with the works of Giacomo Puccini.\u00a0 To debut the opening of the War Memorial Opera House in 1932; to reopen in 1997 after the renovation necessitated by the Loma Prieta earthquake; and to mark its return to audiences in 2021 after the pandemic hiatus, the company has turned to the same Puccini masterpiece, the dark and glorious \u201cTosca.\u201d<\/p>\n

The audience was enthralled just to be back in the opera house, appreciative that the company and government authorities found protocols to permit the return to live performance.\u00a0 Although no social distancing requirements applied, the audience was fully vaccinated and fully masked, substantially eliminating the risk of Covid-19 transmission.<\/p>\n

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Ailyn Per\u00e9z as Tosca, Michael Fabiano as Cavaradossi.<\/p><\/div>\n

As expected, the company offers a strong rendering of this classic, albeit, as a remount of its stellar 2018 production. Per the composer\u2019s intent, it takes place in Rome during the Napoleanic Era, lavishly staged with independent sets for each of the three acts.\u00a0 Though impressive, the visuals offer nothing new to SFO regulars.\u00a0 But the artists are new, and this season opener marks the conducting debut of Eun Sun Kim in her role as Music Director of San Francisco Opera.<\/p>\n

What is it about \u201cTosca\u201d that endows it with near universal appeal?\u00a0 There have been naysayers who find the action and music of verismo<\/em> to be too violent and vulgar, but they are now few.\u00a0 To begin with, this is a mature and confident Puccini in the follow up to his equally renowned \u201cLa Boheme.\u201d\u00a0 The opera\u2019s dissonant, ominous opening salvo of the Scarpia theme announces the tragedy to come, while the ensuing score resounds with rich melody, haunting leitmotifs, and several memorable \u201cgreatest hits\u201d arias.<\/p>\n

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Alfred Walker as Scarpia, Ailyn Per\u00e9z as Tosca.<\/p><\/div>\n

To complement the music, \u201cTosca\u201d possesses intense drama anchored, nay, dominated by three archetypal characters.\u00a0 Ailyn Per\u00e9z plays the title role of Floria Tosca, a great singer who lives for art and love.\u00a0 This character offers unusually broad scope for interpretation, and Per\u00e9z uses her natural youth and charm to make Tosca delightfully coquettish, inducing uncommon and welcomed levity into Act 1. \u00a0Michael Fabiano plays her lover, the courageous hero Mario Cavaradossi, a painter in a church, surreptitiously involved in a political movement revolting against Rome\u2019s current government.\u00a0 Finally, the antagonist is Scarpia, whose very name resonates with evil.\u00a0 As Chief of Police, his pursuit of enemies of the state comes with the territory, but his methods are foul.\u00a0 For one, he looks to gain sexual favors from Tosca in return for releasing Cavaradossi from arrest and probable execution.\u00a0 Alfred Walker\u2019s facility for an ambiguous countenance allows him to depict Scarpia\u2019s unctuous allure as well as his callousness and depravity.<\/p>\n

Conductor Kim exacts full measure from the 68-piece orchestra, which fills the house with rich sound. Although the overall production satisfies extremely, the one weakness is that the principals do not always compete well with the orchestra.\u00a0 That is not the case with Fabiano, who is always clearly audible and even overpowers with controlled anguish when called upon.\u00a0 His nicely-tuned vibrato shows well in the beautiful Act 1 love letter to Tosca and Mary Magdalena, \u201cRecondita armonia.\u201d\u00a0 At the end, he brings the house down with his mournful rendition of the fabulous \u201cE lucevan le stelle,\u201d as he contemplates death by firing squad.\u00a0 This beloved aria\u2019s distinctive quality comes in part from the lead-in melody being carried by an evocative oboe, while the tenor provides counter support until given his turn.<\/p>\n

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Ailyn Per\u00e9z as Tosca, Michael Fabiano as Cavaradossi.<\/p><\/div>\n

Per\u00e9z possesses a beautifully lyric voice that sometimes gets lost at lower volumes.\u00a0 Conversely, when singing forte, her voice turns dramatic and penetrates with ease.\u00a0 Happily, she conquers her signature aria \u201cVissi d\u2019arte\u201d to a quieted house in Act 2, tenderly and with great confidence as she pleads with Scarpia to free her from the misery that he has caused.\u00a0 She and Fabiano deliver both power and beauty in their final duet.\u00a0 Noteworthy is that while Puccini included rare full or partial duets, he avoided the artifice of large ensemble numbers in this opera.<\/p>\n

Scarpia\u2019s most significant vocal moment is shared with the chorus in the booming Act 1 conclusion, \u201cTe Deum (Tosca)\u201d with his expressive repetition of the heroine\u2019s name against the chorus\u2019s religious praise to God.\u00a0 Walker\u2019s tonality is pleasant, but more commanding power would deliver the plaintive emotion of the piece better.\u00a0 Otherwise, he does demonstrate his character\u2019s dominance and rage quite well.<\/p>\n

\u201cTosca,\u201d composed by Giacomo Puccini with libretto by Giuseppe Giacoso and Luigi Illica is produced by San Francisco Opera and appears at War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco, CA through September 5, 2021.<\/p>\n

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Has any other opera been so strongly associated with the birth and rebirth of a grand opera house and its resident company?\u00a0 From its inception by founder Gaetano Merola, San…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"yasr_overall_rating":0,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[664],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-24134","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-victor-cordell"},"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":true,"span_bottom":"