ReviewIn Opera Hong Kong’s new Tosca, Claudio Sgura steals the show as Scarpia, the staging is clever and Oksana Dyka strikes right balance in title role
- The staging is ingenious in this new production of Puccini’s opera Tosca, and soprano Oksana Dyka, in the title role, sings beautifully and with feeling
- However, she lacks chemistry with Roberto Aronica, playing her lover, Cavaradossi. Fortunately, Claudio Sgura saves the day as the evil Scarpia
By the time Giacomo Puccini’s opera Tosca was premiered in 1900, approaches to singing in Europe were varied.
The old Italian operatic style of bel canto had had a mini resurgence, which contrasted with the Wagnerian sprechgesang. The verismo (realist) style of Puccini and his contemporaries, which offered greater fluidity, accessible characters, and great vocal strength given the frequently dense orchestral scores, further contributed to a diverging vocal landscape.
Opera Hong Kong’s new production of Tosca was made real by Oksana Dyka (alternating in the title role with Anna Nechaeva), who exuded both tenderness and torment with equal veracity, and without ever overdoing the verismo vibrato. The orchestra never intruded upon her space, allowing a nuance of tone to express the necessary complexities of her character.
After a crazed scene in which the voluptuary sadist Baron Scarpia attacks the diva, Tosca must then sing the famous “Vissi d’arte, vissi d’amore” (“I lived for my art, I lived for love”) with a sense of exhaustion. With a natural purity in her upper range, here Dyka was able to elevate her craft to express a fine balance between bewilderment and pain.
The love of which she sings is for Mario Cavaradossi, played on opening night by the tenor Roberto Aronica (alternating with Rame Lahaj).
Dyka and Aronica performed the same roles in a 2015 Metropolitan Opera production of the opera; whether or not chemistry between them existed then, it was clear that the spark had gone. Aronica’s portrayal was lacklustre, with a voice that sounded strained, husky and at times forced.
Their opening interaction at a church, which requires him to calm her suspicions of an affair, was a travesty. It was impossible to believe in the passion between the characters – hardly encouraging for an opera built on the significance of their love.
Their duet in Act 3 too lacked synchronicity, making it hard for us to fully invest in Cavaradossi’s subsequent fate.
More than 100 years after Tosca was written, its fundamental themes of abuse of power and authoritarianism are as relevant now as they were then. It is essential, therefore, that performers humanise their characters to help us reflect on our own behaviour.
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As for the sets, for Act 1 a dividing mesh wall hung at the front of the stage, which incorporated a large, illuminated circle revealing church seating and a two-tiered painter’s scaffold.
Praise must go to set designer Vincent Lemaire for envisioning this “eye” as a way to spy on the action. Further, when Cavaradossi sings “Recondita armonia” (“Hidden harmonies”) directed at his own painting, an image of the Madonna appeared projected on the mesh canvas, furnishing us with a lens into the mind of the artist and his thoughts.
However, some poor lighting choices at the start meant the church was darkened to the point where the characters and their expressions could not be clearly identified. This improved upon Tosca’s entrance, and in Act II when a trap door was opened, an orange hue filtered through, perfectly suggestive of the torture taking place below.
The night belonged to Claudio Sgura, whose physicality in the role of the lecherous Scarpia had the right blend of menace and madness. The limp, the cane, the cigarette, the command of his physique, and his slow but calculating movements all worked in harmony to created a fully realised form of evil.
One of the fundamental intentions of verismo is to shift focus away from Gods, myths and royalty and instead introduce contemporary people and their problems. Unlike others in the cast, Sgura’s interpretation was profoundly human, leaving us seething for those that suffer injustice at the hands of the Scarpias of this world.
Tosca, Opera Hong Kong/Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, Grand Theatre, Hong Kong Cultural Centre. Reviewed October 11.
