Tosca, English National Opera, ENO, London Coliseum, November 2011

Catherine Malfitano’s production of Tosca opens with a bang, not just from the excellent conducting of Stephen Lord, but the sudden appearance of the escaped prisoner Angelotti, centre stage at the rear of the church. He turns and flies forward, a dramatic move that sets the scene for this most theatrical of operas.

All images by Mike Hoban

Cavaradossi’s entrance is low key — he is after all just a painter coming to work on a mural — but when Gwyn Hughes Jones bursts into his first aria on the beauty of women, his impassioned lyricism catapulted this performance immediately into the top division. The duet with Matthew Hargreaves as Angelotti was brilliantly delivered, showing us the political facet of Cavaradossi’s personality.

Cavaradossi and Sacristan

Scarpia’s entrance with his henchmen, and security guards in black top hats, is a fine piece of staging helped by the excellent lighting design of David Martin Jacques. As Scarpia himself, Anthony Michaels-Moore reprised the role he sang in the first run of this production in May 2010. This attractive but deadly man evinces real desire for Tosca, combined with cool-headed cunning. The evil depth that one sometimes sees is not emphasised, but then this drama is far bigger than the characters, and I find the representation by Michaels-Moore to be spot on.

The sacristan can often appear a mere bumbling idiot, but Henry Waddington gave him some depth as a churchman who thoroughly dislikes the secular nature of the French under Napoleon, happy to think that the forces of ‘freedom’ have been defeated and more than ready to help Scarpia find the rebel Angelotti. This production gives us the political dimension of Verdi’s opera, and the forces of tradition are well exhibited by the appearance of the cardinal in his vast red cloak towards the end of Act I.

Scarpia in sybaritic mood

As Acts II and III proceeded to draw the drama to its tragic conclusion, Claire Rutter came into her own as Tosca, after a disappointing performance in Act I. This is where Tosca sets the sequence of events off on a disastrous track by her own cupidity and misplaced jealousy, yet the charm of this great singing actress was most notable by its absence, though her reactions during the torture scene in Act II, and her singing of vissi d’arte, made up for it. The torture scene off-stage is entirely realistic, and it takes four of Scarpia’s men to carry in the ample body of Cavaradossi after he has collapsed. Gwyn Hughes Jones’ fine singing of Vittoria re-ignites his political aspect, and the realism of his execution in Act III was something to behold, with flashes of gunpowder from the muskets.

Tosca just before her fatal fall

The conversation between Cavaradossi and the Carceriere at the start of the third act was beautifully done, showing there is still some decency in the Castel Sant’Angelo, and I liked the horseplay between the guards before the final scene. After Cavaradossi lies dead, Tosca throws herself backwards over the parapet, and the curtain closes on a terrific production.

If you saw this in its first run in 2010, go again to hear a world-class performance by Gwyn Hughes Jones as Cavaradossi, with the orchestra superbly directed by Stephen Lord.

Performances continue until January 29 next year, so don’t miss it — for details click here.

La Bohème, English National Opera, ENO at the London Coliseum, October 2010

This is the first time I’ve seen Jonathan Miller’s 2009 production, and I was enchanted. The sets and costumes by Isabella Bywater, based on images of Paris from about 1932 by the famous Hungarian photographer, sculptor and filmmaker Brassaï, are wonderful. The roofs stretching into the distance, though merely painted on a side screen, look entirely solid, and I loved the way the set opens out to transform the bohemians’ garret into the café Momus. With superb lighting designed by Jean Kalman, this is a magically authentic production.

Act III photo by Robert Workman

As I felt the energy of the orchestra in the first few bars I sat back to enjoy the musical direction of Stephen Lord, and wasn’t disappointed. After Mimi came on he opened out the music most charmingly, and Mimi herself was the star of the show, gloriously sung by Elizabeth Llewellyn, making her ENO debut. This is a young woman to watch out for, and according to the programme she will sing the Countess in Figaro at Opera Holland Park next summer. I look forward to it. Her Rodolfo was Gwyn Hughes Jones whose noble tenor voice could have used more vulnerability and enthusiasm. Roland Wood was a convincing Marcello, and I loved his duet with Mimi in Act III. His difficult lover, the effervescent Musetta, was strongly sung and performed by Mairead Buicke, though her diction was lost in the vibrato. For those who prefer their La Bohème in Italian, I’m inclined to agree, but I did rather enjoy Amanda Holden’s translation.

The four bohemians interacted well together, and their horseplay in Act IV, before Musetta comes into the apartment to announce Mimi’s fateful entrance, was perfectly done. This production never goes over the top, but it creates fun, emotion and pathos at the right places, and for those who saw it last year, it’s worth revisiting just to hear the young Elizabeth Llewellyn. Further performances are scheduled for: Oct 20, 23, 28, 30; Nov 3, 5, 12, 18, 25; and Jan 22, 25, 27, with Alfie Boe singing Rodolfo in the January performances. For more details click here.

Rigoletto, ENO, English National Opera, September 2009

This Jonathan Miller production, revived many times in the past 27 years, sets the action in a Mafia crime family of the 1950s. It’s an interesting take on a story whose origin is Victor Hugo’s play Le roi s’amuse. Written in 1832 in the heady aftermath of the 1830 revolution that brought Louis-Philippe to power as the ‘citizen king’ of France, the title of the original play and its attitude to royalty were unacceptable in other parts of Europe. Kings do not ‘amuse themselves’ in this way and it was immediately banned elsewhere. When Verdi came to write his opera, in the years following the 1848 revolutions across Europe, he replaced the king by the Duke of Mantua but the censors still had concerns, not only about the portrayal of the ‘king’ but also the hunchbacked jester whose outward appearance reflected his corrupt nature and nasty streak while he remained a devoted father to his daughter Gilda. The concept of hedonistic, anti-social autocrats and their supporters was a far cry from the Western ideals of governance, but is not a million miles from crime syndicates that command murders when it suits them, yet treat their own with care and concern. With this in mind, Jonathan Miller’s production makes great sense, and the designs by Patrick Robertson and Rosemary Vercoe, with clever lighting originally designed by Robert Bryan, give an air of authenticity to the drama.

The jester, named Triboulet in Hugo’s play, becomes Rigoletto in the opera, and is one of Verdi’s great creations, sung here by Anthony Michaels-Moore, who played him with enormous sensitivity. His sneeringly lugubrious stage presence and lyrical singing gave just the right sense of conflict to this Lear-like character, and with Katherine White portraying Gilda’s vulnerability so well, these two became the centre point of the opera. The ‘duke’ was strongly sung and acted by the young Michael Fabiano, one of the six winners in the recent Metropolitan Opera competition, who seems to have just the right devil-may-care attitude for the ‘duke’. The cast balanced one another well, particularly with Brindley Sherratt as a darkly sinister Sparafucile, whose bass voice oozed menacing integrity — I was reminded of his excellent performance as Pimen in Boris Godunov last November. His sister Maddalena was also well sung and portrayed by Madeleine Shaw, but the lacklustre conducting of Stephen Lord was a disappointment. He seemed to have good control of the orchestra, and raised the tempo at significant points, but I didn’t feel the music breathed with the vitality of the plot.

In a recent BBC Radio interview, Jonathan Miller inveighed against the ‘concepts’ that some German directors bring to their opera productions. I agreed instantly, but the concept of a ‘concept’ is not well-defined, and I’d prefer to think of the opera itself inhabiting a domain, which each production represents in its own way. That Miller’s production of Rigoletto has lasted 27 years in the repertory of the ENO is evidence that its representation is a great success. What goes wrong with some German productions — and the Meistersinger and Tristan I saw recently in Bayreuth are cases in point — is that rather than represent the domain in which the opera lives, they transport it to a box that insulates it from all or part of its natural domain. Jonathan Miller doesn’t do this — he stays true to the original, giving us a way to understand and appreciate it.