Review: Tosca at the Metropolitan Opera
Xian Zhang | Sondra Radvanovsky | Brian Jagde | Sir Bryn Terfel
In his review of the Met’s latest cast in their 2024–25 Tosca, Jay Nordlinger exuded praise for Sondra Radvanovsky’s portrayal of the title role and Sir Bryn Terfel’s performance as her nemesis, Scarpia. Radvanovsky, he said, was “una vera Tosca”. What makes a true Tosca? In my own account of the performance, I want to unpack what makes Tosca special and how this cast embodied the Tosca of Giacomo Puccini’s mind.
Written at the turn of the 20th century, Tosca is a marked change from Verdian grand opera. Giuseppe Verdi had transformed Italian opera from stale, unemotional artifice. He added a “local, authentic color” to Italian opera, and exploited differences in various characters through music. The richer harmonic palette, the expanded role of the orchestra, and more meticulous treatment of character he left Puccini were essential in crafting Tosca. Puccini complemented his inheritance with an almost Wagnerian use of leitmotifs: repeating themes which take the audience into the hearts and minds of the characters. Tosca contains a special motif for Mario and Tosca’s love, one for Scarpia’s villainy and another for his lust, and another for Tosca’s murder of Scarpia, among others. These occur in different forms throughout the opera; often in different keys and by different instruments; sometimes loud, sometimes subdued; sometimes behind a pall of gloom and sometimes burning with ardor. Tosca is a “drama of happenings”, continually driven by action and musical narration, for which these motifs are vital.
The orchestra plays a crucial role. It lifts the audience up in speculation using these motifs, while the singers are often stuck on one or two notes, or silent. In other places, it ebbs and flows to complement the singers’ soaring melodies. I would go far enough to call the orchestra the fourth character after Tosca, Mario, and Scarpia. Conductors tackling Puccini’s score have a daunting task ahead of them– they cannot afford to let tempos loosen and the action undercut, or to let the variations in the leitmotifs sag. In yesterday’s performance, Xian Zhang led an electrifying performance from the orchestral pit, syncing Puccini’s valuable motifs with the singers and sending a buzz of energy up the stage floor.
And now the singers. Patrick Carfizzi, a Met Opera icon, was delightful in his portrayal of the Sacristan, shuffling along with grumpy ire at Mario. Carfizzi’s nuances on stage, from dropping Mario’s paintbrushes to occasional sniffs from his snuffbox, from pattering along his lines with Mario to quivering before the imposing Scarpia, were endearing and charmed the audience. I was lucky enough to run into Carfizzi after the performance; he was warm, friendly, and indulging of this overzealous fan.
Brian Jagde– young, proud, handsome, and warm– made a riveting Mario Cavaradossi. His tender and lovely indulgences of Tosca’s jealousy in Act I changed to bold resistance against Scarpia’s inquisition in Act II. Upon hearing of Napoleon’s victory, Jagde’s “VITTORIA!” was long, resonant, and sustained, to cheers from the audience. Finally, in Act III, Jagde delivered a desperate, bleak, and therefore touching rendition of “E lucevan le stelle”, complete with Puccinian sob and paired well with the orchestra’s interspersed motifs.
Sir Bryn Terfel in his final set of performances as Baron Scarpia, one of his signature roles, was a visual and vocal treat– tall, strong, dark, imposing, menacing, and feral. Musicologist Julian Budden writes: “There is more concentrated villainy in Scarpia’s orchestral motif than in anything he has to sing.” Scarpia’s motif lingers in various forms throughout the opera, as a harbinger as well as ghost. It announces his arrival amidst a flurry of excitement in church as priests and choirboys prepare for celebration– the villain marches through the commotion and barks an admonition. It rings proudly after he announces, against a Te Deum, a despicable scheme to seduce Tosca and execute her lover. All throughout, Scarpia slithers, snarls, gnashes, and roars. Consequently, a good Scarpia, while possessing vocal gravitas, must also demonstrate impeccable theatricality. He is no mere street thug. He hides his libertine lust behind a veneer of piety, conniving to use both confessor and hangman as agents in his pursuits. He is a bloodhound, who would rather hunt women down than woo them. He is desperate, since his life is one the line should his faction lose power.
Sir Bryn delivered all that and more. Eyes bulging, he ominously lurked on stage, looming over Tosca as he implanted seeds of jealousy in her. He menaced Mario as he interrogated him, whispering and then snapping threats of torture. He dogged Tosca all over the stage as she begged for Mario’s life, gnawing and growling between vocal lines while declaring Scarpia’s lust for her. Drawing from the great Tito Gobbi, he even impishly tickled Tosca with his quill. His smarmy rasps made his Scarpia all the more intimidating, while a carefully crafted smirk, flexible tone, and faux dignity elevated him beyond a ruffian. While Sir Bryn’s voice was not as vibrantly booming as in his youth, he was all the more incisive, forcing more power through a narrower vocal channel.
Finally, the title character. Puccini’s opera is based on Victorien Sardou’s 1887 play. In transforming the source material, Puccini and his librettists, Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa added a third dimension to Sardou’s flat characterization of Tosca. Sardou’s Tosca is humorless and somewhat petulant. Puccini’s Tosca is gullible, but not daft; jealous, but never undignified; pious, but quite sensual; brave, but also vulnerable. Sondra Radvanovsky embodied this transformation of character, bringing us a Tosca who laughed and wept, cowered and confronted, and kept the audience at the edge of our seats.
Tosca’s first word is from off-stage, a jealous, excitable, and eager cry of her lover’s name: “Mario!” Radvanovsky marked her ownership of the title role from then until she cursed Scarpia and leapt off the parapet of the Castel Sant’Angelo in the final scene. She was Tosca. Every nuance revealed a more complicated character underneath. Apart from her gorgeous singing, her body language was utterly convincing. From prying around the church in Act I, enviously trying to uncover evidence of Mario’s alleged infidelity, to playfully romancing him after he placated her, to melting in grief when Scarpia supplied said “evidence”, Radvanovsky enraptured the audience. In Act II, her chemistry with Sir Bryn gave us a frightening and throbbing torture scene as she begged Scarpia to let Mario go, only to be scoffed. And then, during Tosca’s famous aria “Vissi d’arte”, Radvanovsky showed us Tosca’s simplicity, vulnerability, and piety as she cried to God why her life of devotion had been answered with such suffering. The audience fittingly applauded for minutes after this aria as she lay crouched on stage, arms raised to God. Watch below her 2018 performance of this aria.
Radvanovsky excelled in making her powerful voice quiver with emotion, shrinking her instrument to a thin weep, only to punch her audience’s proverbial tear-sac as she energizes on the same note, colorful and ringing. She matched this vocal maneuver with rapid outbursts and increasingly bolder cries as she leapt upon Scarpia with a concealed knife, stabbing the monster who molested her: “Does your blood suffocate you? Die, accursed! Die! Die! Die!” Even more stunning was her delivery of the final line in Act II, as Scarpia lay dead: “Before this man trembled all of Rome!” as the orchestra picked up the murder motif. Radvanovsky burst into an almost diabolical laughter, finally making way to broken and exasperated sobs as she dropped the dagger and came to terms with what had just transpired. To sing Tosca is hard enough; to sing Tosca with the rush of adrenaline the character requires is nigh impossible– and Radvanovsky triumphed.
Tosca is a drama of happenings with four characters: Tosca, Scarpia, Mario Cavaradossi, and the orchestra. The action does not stop and is driven by characters’ reactions to each other. In any performance, each needs to deliver, not hesitating to mask the litany of emotions the opera produces, while reserving vocal, instrumental, and physical energy for the highlights. A good performance can make the emotions, simplistic on paper, soar. The Met’s Tosca achieved all that and more. All four characters came to life, delivering an operatic memory I will treasure for decades.
Music
Tosca by Giacomo Puccini. Recommended recording and streaming below; Met performance not available for streaming.
1953 Recording: Victor de Sabata, Maria Callas, Giuseppe di Stefano, Tito Gobbi.
Full video streaming: Royal Opera House 2011. Antonio Pappano, Angela Gheorghiu, Jonas Kaufmann, Sir Bryn Terfel. Younger patrons can sign up for a free account!
References
Budden, Julian. Puccini: His Life and Works. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.