Tosca

I well remember the impressive Dido and Aeneas by the forerunner of Yarra Opera, so I was looking forward to this foray into Puccini. I was only partly satisfied.

The orchestra of less than twenty did very well. This particularly applied to the brass and woodwinds. There were a couple of keyboards to fill in for missing instruments and everything was quite tight until a couple of loose moments in Act 3.

On stage there was some terrific singing. Catriona de Vere, who was such a beautiful Dido, was equally impressive in the title role. She met every vocal demand and was a passionate Tosca.

I have seen Salvatore Granata in a number of productions with Melbourne City Opera and his dramatic voice is ideally suited to this role, though his acting was a bit wooden. Young baritone Sung Sun Hong, who I have only seen in eisteddfods, was in magnificent voice, though somewhat expressionless, and he could have used more variety of dynamics. He and some of the minor characters were closely watching the conductor and some cues were missed.

No director is credited in the program, and that was obvious from what was happening on stage. Tosca has swathes of instrumental music which demand some clear direction for the performers. Unfortunately the singers were left to work it out for themselves, and there was a lot of standing around. Also the Sacristan is supposed to be a comic character to contrast with the evil Scarpia. This didn’t happen here.

The projection of the Sant' Andrea della Valle in the first act looked magnificent, but I felt they could have found more appropriate projections for the second and third acts. The small chorus sang well in the Te Deum, but were a bit ragged and too loud in the off-stage chorus of act 2, so that the principals struggled to be heard.

I was disappointed that amplification was used in this production, but it was unnoticeable after the first act.

But in the end, opera is about the voices, and they had them in spades. Certainly the audience was well satisfied.

Graham Ford