Tosca
By Giacomo Puccini
Lyric Opera of Chicago
Conductor, Sir Andrew Davis
Stage Director, Garnett Bruce
A review by M. D. Ball of the performance on Oct. 10, 2009
Leap not to conclusions. The axis of this story is narcissism and the consequences of conceit, especially when it confuses itself with love. There's Tosca's impetuosity, which seems innocuous at first glance, and there are Scarpia's appetites, which are clearly extirpative. In effect, Tosca and Scarpia show us two different emanations of the same psychological root, although Tosca's self-indulgence we call "jealousy" and Scarpia's "lust".
Despite their being equally visceral, she's reckless and he's calculating. Both our heroine and her nemesis ultimately bring destruction to themselves and others in efforts to satisfy their own selfish desires. And the only reason we sympathize with Tosca is that her motivation looks like love, even though everything she does can be seen as a strategem to secure Mario for herself, rather than to pursue his best interest, which is how the more sensitive among us, poets and theologians included, characterize love. Her "love" is, therefore, ambiguous, and ambiguity interests us as a puzzle. In this case, nevertheless, we give Tosca the benefit of the doubt.
By contrast, Scarpia's motivation is easier to identify. His greed, or his prurience -- or the disturbing synergism between his greed and his prurience -- imbues him with a determination similar in magnitude to Tosca's. Even so, because Scarpia has more than one dimension, the role offers the singer an opportunity to find the psychological and moral complexity in this wicked and pathetic old man whose satisfaction seems to derive from villainy.
James Morris' Scarpia had an eery politesse. His comportment exuded dignity, confidence, and polish. Into his character, however, Morris imbued a subtlety that opened the way for reflection -- not so far that he transformed Scarpia's contemptibility into respectability, but enough to reveal, or imply, Scarpia's self-awareness and the fact that he knew at least peripherally that his way of life was questionable. Along this line, Morris didn't give perfunctory voice to his introspective lines in the opening to Act II: Tal dei profondi amori, è la profonda miseria... (Such is the profound misery of profound love...) and Non so trarre accordi di chitarra... (I know not how to draw harmony from guitars...). On the contrary, at this moment and at others, the singer used his vocal warmth to establish a very thin atmosphere of regret over his attitude and behavior. This particular Scarpia was interesting both in spite of and because of his cruelty. Scarpia's combination of vices and virtues always raises the amaranthine question of how the worst among us excuse their bad behavior and why the rest of us let them.
For me, the singers who assume the roles of Tosca and Scarpia do well to highlight their similarity (self-indulgence) and their difference (self-limitation). Deborah Voigt made Tosca's jealousy irritating, coupling it to an adolescent whining and suspiciousness that might have become a boring caricature had Voigt not been true to Tosca's vulnerability. Like Scarpia, Tosca desires and pursues with urgency and cunning. Unlike Scarpia, though, her passion is unmoderated -- she often acts before thinking -- despite stopping short of brutality. Voigt conveyed Tosca's anxiety and rashness, while, as I said above, Morris delivered on Scarpia's calculating sadism. I'm never sure whether Tosca's grief arises from being denied what she wants or from understanding the magnitude of what Cavaradossi loses, namely, his life. Nevertheless, both Voigt and Morris succeeded in bringing out the ultimate selfishness of these two characters, making the mutual reinforcement easier to see as the ugly consequences of their actions unfolded.
Morris' bass voice was rich and restrained, well-suited to his interpretation of the role. Voigt's singing per se was generally routine, but she did use it effectively to suggest whining, which I mentioned earlier, to define Tosca's personality. Her tone was sometimes shrill, and she did disappoint in "Vissi d'arte" by faltering at the climax. For my taste, her voice is too Wagnerian for Puccini.
Vladimir Galouzine, who sang Cavaradossi, was the least-non-Italianate voice in the cast. His dark but powerful tenor cracked open the auditorium's atmosphere, reminding me of Pavarotti -- not in tone, but in audacity. He hit the high notes with aplomb, accuracy, and muscle. In fact, he was almost too strong for the space, ironic for the second-largest auditorium in North America.