English National Opera’s Tosca has scale and passion — review

It’s important to get off to a good start, as the past week in politics has shown. English National Opera has taken that to heart and, with the performing arts facing a difficult period for ticket sales and finances, the company has delivered a strong opening to its 2022/3 season.

The big Italian operas have proved challenging ground for ENO in the past, but its new production of Puccini’s Tosca has an upbeat confidence. Staging and singing are suitably big in scale and passion.

Anybody who has deserted ENO recently because of a run of outlandish productions can come back. Originally staged by Finnish National Opera in 2018, this Tosca is a typically professional production from German director Christof Loy and, some questionable moments apart, is fairly traditional in its look and impact.

There is a celebrated 1976 film of Tosca, starring Plácido Domingo, that was recorded live in the opera’s three real-life locations in Rome. Loy is not so specific, but we do get a church, a palazzo interior and the outline of a rooftop panorama of the city. His defining idea is to focus on the clash of political beliefs that provides the opera’s historical background. Tosca is set in the wake of the French Revolution, as Napoleon’s army fights for control of Italy, enthusing young liberals such as the artist Cavaradossi, while the old order of police chief Scarpia doubles down on repression.

This is represented by the costumes, with Cavaradossi dressed in a forward-looking, timeless style, while Scarpia appears in period brocaded jackets (the ghostly white rococo figures from the old order who hover in the background fit in with this two-period theme).

Elsewhere, the opera’s venerable traditions remain. Tosca even gets to place the candlesticks around Scarpia’s corpse, as detailed precisely by Puccini, and Sinéad Campbell-Wallace, in the title role, manages to make it look fresh. There is an awkward patch in the upper middle of her voice, but the top soars, and she sings with a generosity of spirit that fills the theatre.

As Cavaradossi, Adam Smith is no less impressive. In the 50 years that ENO has been at the Coliseum, the theatre can rarely have witnessed top notes so ringingly confident and held at such length (how many seconds was his triumphant “Vittoria”?). He works hard to sound sensitive in the lyrical passages, despite some inflexibility in the voice, and looks the part as a revolutionary young artist.

It is bad luck that Noel Bouley fell ill just before the first night, necessitating a last-minute stand-in from Roland Wood, who sang Scarpia while Bouley acted the role. Bonus points go to John Findon’s strongly sung Spoletta and an intriguing take on Tosca in the form of a poem read at the beginning of the production by ENO spoken-word artist Kieron Rennie.

If only the conductor, Leo Hussain, did not sap the energy so much, everything would be in place. His is a stop-go performance, at its best when he is letting the ENO orchestra off the leash. That can deliver quite a punch in this big theatre.

★★★★☆

To November 4, eno.org