Tosca

Published in the The Post-Journal, Jamestown, NY
August 7, 2009
By Robert W. Plyler

CHAUTAUQUA - Some of Giacomo Puccini’s most beautiful and passionate music is on the stage of Norton Hall, this week, as the Chautauqua Opera Company presents a production of the opera Tosca.

The opera gets its name from its principal character, an internationally celebrated singer named Floria Tosca. It takes place in Rome, in the year 1800. At that time Napoleonás France was fighting the Austrian Empire for control of Italy. Napoleon was promising that if he won, he would grant people equality and the right to vote.

Tosca herself is not political, but she is in love with the painter, Mario Cavaradossi, who is sympathetic to the pro-French Republic. Eventually, the painter falls into the hands of Baron Scarpia, the Austrian police chief, who tortures him terribly until Tosca reveals the secrets she knows about the whereabouts of a wanted activist. Then he promises to kill the painter unless the singer yields to his sexual advances.

From end to end, the opera is a work of passions, including jealousy, romantic love, patriotism, hatred, betrayal and fear of death. Puccini’s music comes as close as can be imagined to capturing those passions then laying them open to the audience’s understanding.

Carter Scott is a beautiful Tosca, and her dark, vibrant dramatic soprano is wonderfully compelling.

Similarly, tenor Jeffrey Springer is handsome and agile as he has a heavy, powerful voice which fills the hall and the listener’s head, as Cavaradossi.

Baritone Todd Thomas was an ideal foil to the pair as the lecherous baron. His aria on how a person who loves leaves himself open to betrayal, while a person who takes what he wants from other people at least has the satisfaction of winning, produces the same grudging reaction from the audience as Shakespeare’s Richard III.

Director Henry Akina allowed too much flouncing around the stage when more dignity would have been more affecting, but he told the story and kept our focus on it, to powerful effect.

Conductor Steven Osgood and the Chautauqua Opera Orchestra accompanied excellently, bursting into dramatic fortes and withdrawing into stifled pianissimi exactly as the singers needed.

Miguel Romero’s sets were dramatic and effective, and Michael Baumgarten’s lighting could not have set the scenes more perfectly.

This is a very fine production, fitting perfectly into a season which has demonstrated simply wonderful singing. Tosca was reviewed in dress rehearsal, at the company’s request. It will be performed Friday and Monday at 7:30p.m. in Chautauqua’s Norton Hall.