Double-dose Tosca

I went back to see the ENO "Tosca" again last night. I'm really glad I did - I think I appreciated more of the subtleties for seeing it twice. Also the cast had settled more fully into their rôles, which meant two of them were even better than the first time (yum!) and the one I thought a little duff before was in much better form. My gods, Amanda Echalaz is stunning. The only problem about going a second time was being left once again with a vague and slightly kinky crush on Scarpia. Yes, I know, he's the bad guy. But I do like my baritones.

It's been a glorious sunny day...

I had a picnic in the Gardens with some colleagues at lunch; we all sat in the sun on the grass bank beside the Slate Towers fountain, eating wholemeal bagels and hummus and tomatoes, and cake (Viv had been baking), and getting somnolent and comfy like a gang of snoozing cats. The first lindens are just coming into flower, and their sweet scent was cascading over us. I really did nearly fall asleep, after having a rotten night last night (I had eaten an entire bar of chocolate, my first chocolate in a month, and was plagued by unsavoury nightmares of crashing cars and fighting off Second Favourite Baritone's creepy Scarpia - I'm sure Mr M-M is a perfectly nice guy who goes home to kiss his kids goodnight and walk his dog, and I guess it's a compliment to how unnerving his characterisation was that I subsequently have bad dreams about it!). Anyway, I managed not to drop off to sleep in the blazing June sun... and now as I set off home it is just a tad cooler so that cycling in it will be a pleasure rather than a toil. Please, dear Lord, please you gods and little fishes, let this really be summer now!

Tosca

Last night I was at an opera with an artist for a hero.

Mario Cavaradossi, the artist in question, is a gifted painter and political radical in early nineteenth century Rome, and is having a passionate love affair with the beautiful opera singer Floria Tosca; nice work if you can get it. Their love is of course destroyed, and their lives wrecked and then ended, by the machinations of the evil chief of police Scarpia. This is one of those operas that end with a lot of corpses, though just for a change not all of them are actually on the stage - Scarpia's body is offstage for the last Act, Angelotti dies offstage during Act 2, and Tosca herself jumps off the roof in the final bars, so she dies out of sight. Cavaradossi, on the other hand, is very dead and very onstage, having been shot by firing squad at the end of Act 3. I love "Tosca", over-ripe melodrama though it is; it has some of Puccini's loveliest music, and a good production (like the current ENO one) is a thoroughly good night out. Just don't expect any subtext.

ENO's Cavaradossi, Julian Gavin, although rather ornamental, isn't that great vocally, and was none too subtle an actor (I was perhaps particularly disappointed due to having heard the breathtaking Jonas Kaufmann singing this part on the radio a few weeks ago). Amanda Echalaz's Tosca was terrific; she looks the part, she sounds wonderful, and she can act. And in the fantastic Anthony Michaels-Moore (perhaps I should call him Potential Second Favourite Baritone) ENO have a Scarpia who is deeply, utterly, creepily vile, and vocally wonderful.

It's a fairly traditional production; no conceptual stuff here, just a good, straight staging with period costumes and some nice directorial touches (Tosca running from the church in Act 1 only to find herself surrounded by adoring fans, and recoiling; Scarpia licking his lips over the glass of wine he savours as he fantasises about raping her), and a staggeringly beautiful set for the last act - a giant stone oeil-de-boeuf opening in the walls of the Castel sant'Angelo, with a radiant night-into-dawn sky beyond. I had a damn good evening; but I am left with the slightly pervy feeling of finding the villian a lot more compelling than the hero!