greg@oliven.UUCP (Greg Paley) (04/05/85)
I enjoyed the Met "Tosca" broadcast more than I expected to. The opera itself still impresses me as pretty cheap stuff - about the artistic equivalent of "Dallas". Nonetheless, it's fun and well calculated for theatrical impact. In the past, Zeffirelli's productions tended to bury the works in opulent set and costume designs, as well as sumbolic gestures and decor that obscured the basic message rather than clarifying it. I wasn't bothered by it in this case and, in fact, found that the lushly beautiful sets actually coincided with the musical atmosphere rather than contradicting it. Although I love great singing and have studied voice and sung myself, I find that the foundation of an operatic performance is really the conductor and orchestra. I have seen a great conductor with a mediocre vocal cast produce a great performance, but I have never experienced the reverse. In this case, I found Sinopoli (and the Met orchestra) extremely impressive, as he has been on recordings over the past several years. I was surprised that, in place of the taughtness and intensity he usually brings to Verdi performances, his pacing of "Tosca" was on the slow side, allowing the luxuriant chordal textures to fully sound, and providing weight and expansiveness. With lighter voices, or with less rhythmic control, this approach would have been disastrous. As it was, I thought it worked beautifully. The cast promised to be interesting, at least. Domingo and MacNeil have both logged in countless performances as Cavaradossi and Scarpia, respectively, and Hildegard Behrens has earned a reputation over the last several years for emotional intensity and power balanced by a very refined intellect and tremendous skill in handling a voice that lacks the steadiness and opulence of a traditional dramatic soprano. Aside from her Fiordiligi in "Cosi Fan Tutte" and Elettra in "Idomeneo" by Mozart, her reputation has been purely in the Germanic repertoire - Strauss's Salome (which catapulted her from basically unknown to something of a superstar in Europe when she did it at Salzburg under Karajan in 1977) and almost the whole Wagnerian gamut, starting with Sieglinde and Senta, progressing over the last several years to Isolde and the Brunnhildes. While not, to my tastes, a particularly beautiful woman, Behrens moved with grace and beauty, creating a credible image of the diva. Her interpretation emphasized the childlike naivite and the insecurities behind the diva facade rather than opting for the arch prima-donna formula. Vocally, she was tremulous and often unsteady in the mid-range, which actually helped the element of vulnerability in her characterization, capable of superb musical effects due to her rhythmic precision, and displayed a top register of amazing ease and beauty (all of the high C's in Act 2 and the difficult one in Act 3 were rock solid). I was surprised, after the grunting and growling she did when killing Scarpia at the end of Act 2, that she was able to sound as fresh and clear as she did in Act 3. Domingo's interpretation was thoughtful and believeable. He interprets Cavaradossi as being under the shadow of death from the very beginning of the opera, so that even his first aria, "Recondita Armonia" takes on a darker significance than usual. In the last act, he fully knows that the scheme to save his life won't work, but can't bring himself to shatter Tosca's illusions. I feel that this makes sense and is borne out in his music. He was slightly under par on this particular evening vocally, the high B-flat at the end of the "Recondita Armonia" being particularly strained. It is still, to my ears, one of the most impressive and beautiful tenor voices to be heard today, with a dark, almost baritonal quality that adds fullness and amplitude right up to the top of his range. I didn't look forward to Cornell MacNeil, since he's sounded badly over the hill on the last several Met telecasts in which he's participated. I was pleasantly surprised by the power and relative steadiness of his voice (although the role has much to do with it since the tessitura is quite low and there is very little exposed legato singing compared to Verdi). Although his appearance pretty well annihilates Zeffirelli's concept of Scarpia as actually having a tremendous sexual magnetism, so that Tosca actually kills him so as to remove a temptation that she fears within herself, his intpretation was still powerful and imposing. I found the first intermission feature, on location in Rome with Zeffirelli, very interesting and enjoyable. The interview with the three vocal soloists that provided the second intermission was a joke - thank God neither Behrens nor Domingo came off as stupidly in performance as they sounded in conversation. I think it was basically another example of the fact that artists of great intellect and ability are often amazingly inarticulate when trying to put the elements of their craft into words. - Greg Paley