What is in Kelvin's Head?

Tosca Review – Scottish Opera 16 October 2019 – ****

21/10/2019

If the fascists came to power, how far would you go to stand up to them? Would you save a prisoner on the run? Would you betray a friend? Would you be prepared to die for love?

Scottish Opera’s endlessly revived production of Tosca asks all these questions and more.

Thirty nine years ago, almost to the day, Anthony Besch’s glorious production first came to the stage, updating Puccini’s melodrama to Mussolini’s Italy. Jonathan Cocker has blown fresh life into it as the revival director and proves that it still has something to say today.

The sets look gorgeous, the singing is strong and Stuart Stratford’s conducting managed to bring off the difficult trick of making the orchestra sound expansive and rich without ever swamping the singers.

In Act 1, Puccini takes us to church. From the first appearance of Dingle Yandell as Angelotti a political prisoner on the run it was clear that singing was going to be one of the strongest features in this revival. Both he and Gwyn Hughes Jones as Cavaradossi, Tosca’s love interest brought an easy confidence to their singing.

The only big trouble in this production is the sheer volume of liturgical faux pas that have been seen before and still haven’t been corrected. People don’t cross themselves a dozen times whilst reciting the angelus. Nor do they turn their backs on the central statue of the Virgin Mary whilst doing so. Nor do bishops process anywhere other than at the back of a procession and when they do, they carry their crosiers in their left hand the better to bless those around them with their right hand. Women were not singing in choirs in Italian churches in the 1940s and when naughty choirboys misbehave (and they do!) they don’t do it like that. For a production that is so detailed and so deliberately set in one place and time, all this does rather jar.

But on to Act 2, and Tosca’s showdown with the villain of the piece, Baron Scarpia. Natalya Romaniw was a revelation, bringing light, energy and bitter pathos to the great aria Vissi d’arte. It felt as though the whole theatre was still – the only movement being the tears gently rolling down a number of faces in the audience. Meanwhile, Roland Wood never seemed to have quite the click of the heels or stamp of the jackboots that one might have expected of a fascist tyrant. A bit more badness would have gone a long way.

By the time we reached the battlements for the final Act, the audience had been on an emotional rollercoaster. Tosca brought it all to an end – betrayed and alone but utterly defiant to the last.

It does seem astonishing that a production that has been revived so many times over nearly 40 years could still pack in a strong audience and still have so much to say. This production is reassuringly the same but times have changed. With the rise of the far right there is a need for art to stand up to oppression wherever it is found. Even opera has a role to play and this production offers courage and inspiration. The fight against tyranny isn’t over and this revival feels all too timely and more relevant than ever.

Rating:

This review was first published by Scene Alba Magazine

Opera Reviews

7 responses to “Reclaiming the web”

Paul Hutchinson

14/10/2015

Thank you for making me think in a different direction just before pausing for lunch. I have never had a blog, so came quite late to Internet social discourse, and have engaged more since joining one major network in 2010 and another in early 2014 – normally using those networks rather than a comment box such as this. Not all of us are natural creators of substantial original content, but like to be thoughtful in brief exchange, and so both those major networks, though cursed with many difficulties, serve those brief exchanges quite well. I do agree that the endless recycling of links (on both of them) can be wearying, and I do wish that some old friends would be a little more self-critical. But the price of any kind of social discourse is that one is vulnerable to the otherness of the other.
I feel I ought to be writing a more substantial comment here, but hope that this is enough. The time is not always there to offer deeper reflection: but sometimes a blogger needs to hear at least a small splash from the stone thrown down the well!

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1. Kelvin
  
  14/10/2015
  
  Thanks for the comment, Paul. I’m aware that not everyone is a content creator, but perhaps what I miss is the sense of discovering different communities online and keeping the comments more or less in one place helps with that.
  
  The glory days of 50 or more comments on a post are probably over. I suspect I mourn the sense of community being created even more than I miss the interesting reflections of others. Retweets and shares are always welcome – but they are the means of amplification. Becoming loud isn’t the same as becoming wise, nor the same as becoming connected.
  
  Reply
Seph

14/10/2015

It’s a damnable shame—and mostly the fault of Facebook. Twitter at least has an etiquette of sorts, wherein it is considered impolite not to respond to the original tweet, which is usually made by the blogger in question.

Facebook, in short, is the scourge of the Internet. I have often been in groups which have decided to do all of their organizing on Facebook, despite my protests that I’m not on Facebook and don’t want to be, and really an e-mail list would be just as easy, and would they like me to set one up. This inevitably leads to my marginalization within the group, as no-one bothers to keep me abreast of the discussions to which I am not party.

Can you tell I’m upset about this?

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Daniel Lamont

14/10/2015

I am only an occasional user of Facebook but I know what you mean, Kelvin. And indeed, I never read the comments ‘below the line’ on newspapers like ‘The Guardian’. You offer some useful advice. I read yours and one or two other blogs on a regular basis but don’t always comment. However, I can see that the author of a blog would like some feedback. I would be sad not to have the blogs that I do read because they do give me a sense of what people are thinking and an odd sense of community.

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Father Ron Smith

14/10/2015

My own contribution to the blogopshere is, I’m afraid, Father Kelvin, limited to comments I make on other people’s blogs (such as ‘Thinking Anglicans’ and ‘Anglican Down Under’ – a local NZ forum; plus my own blog ‘kiwianglo’, where i pluck articles that interest me personally from the web and provide my own commentary. This still interests me, personally, and provides my few readers with information they might not otherwise be bothered to glean for themselves. Like you, I am no longer an avid Facebook fan.

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David Campbell

16/10/2015

Hi Kelvin – thoughtful as ever – and yours is invariably the first blog I turn to each day. That you bring pressing issues to a wider audience and to people who know, or used to know, the church you serve is a great thing. I’m still blogging relatively strongly, but it’s certainly a different blogging experience when work is set in a very different context and especially community from previously, writing these days mainly for myself about things that interest me, although not quite at the address you have in your Blog Roll. http://www.limpingtowardsthesunrise.com is where it’s “all” happening.

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1. Kelvin
  
  16/10/2015
  
  Thanks David – nice to hear from you. I’ve amended the link.
  
  I don’t think many people use blogrolls to find blogs these days but whenever I remove it my mother complains…
  
  Reply