Tosca Final Review: Let's Put this Baby to Bed

Don't shoot the messenger. Lash out at Swiss director Luc Bondy for retooling Zeffirelli's nonthreatening, stately Tosca. Go ahead, he doesn't mind. Hard times call for stripped-down flamboyance, although hard times make one crave familiar creature comforts. Hence, it's impossible to please everyone, and the traditionalist audience was already sharpening their claws at the thought alone of a new Tosca. And thus the new Luc Bondy (in his Metropolitan debut, about 35 years after he debuted everywhere else -- he's old news even at dusty la Scala) production of Puccini’s Tosca opened the Metropolitan Opera’s 2009-10 season to what can diplomatically be described as "mixed" reviews where no production team member was free from criticism (and the singers mostly got away with it, in the usual NYC fashion).

The first season planned entirely by the team of General Manager Peter Gelb and Music Director James Levine, there's no one left to blame. No worries, as the opera is a co-production of Teatro alla Scala and the Bayerische Staatsoper, where it will show to Europe's blasé crowds (Daniele Gatti will conduct the Scala outing).

Too many cultural barometers for Bondy's visceral vision of Tosca, which thrusts itself on an audience yearning for nostalgia in a year fraught with crisis. Remember, it was Franco Zeffirelli's 1985 Tosca that premiered in a very different time: Ronald Reagan, yuppies with silly slicked back hair paving through big Wall Street profits, and really, our biggest foreign responsibility was famine relief in Ethiopia and trying not blow the Russians up if at all possible. Minimal, stark, intellectual stagings are nothing new for Bondy, nor is insisting upon the audience the intricacies of the libretto. Frengo's comforting, romanticized versions of Italy euthanized audiences: no Under the Tuscan Suns found here, this time, Bondy's Tosca will not do wonders for tourism -- no frozen, packaged fish already de-boned, deodorized, and de-headed.

Michael Bay or Michael Haneke? You can't have both.

Act I and a black curtain rises on the interior of Sant'Andrea della Valle. Tosca in the Napoleonic era. Cavaradossi finishes his portrait of Mary Magdalene, left breast exposed. Levine's conducting lovely and acceptable, but again, gutted of the storm and tempestuous foreshadowing that Puccini had flitted through his manuscript. A bit too maudlin and no new ideas to match Bondy's crystalline vision. We wanted a sound more harmonious with the cruel and abusive plot, more chiaroscuro, less pretty modeling. Separately, both leads showed weaknesses.

Karita Mattila sang the title role for the first time (outside of Finland -- she sang Tosca at Helsinki's Finnish National Opera in 2006) and although she poured herself into Tosca's shoes heroically, it was misplaced, and she was unable to pull the character through the full dimension. The underlying vulnerability that's overtly squandered as the opera unfolds was never there. Matilla was too haughty and severe from the beginning (stabbily destroying Cavaradossi's Mary Magdalene painting in an uncontrollable fit of jealousy, which was effective foreshadowing) focusing rather obtusely on the strengths of the character. She played a mature Tosca, contemplative and exacting. At times detached, casting Matilla in this role is like walking into Le Bernardin and ordering a hamburger: she's banked decades of successful reviews in German, Czech, and Russian (superbly singing in Salome, Eugene Onegin, Jenůfa & Kát’a Kabanová) but her Italian repertoire is too much of a stretch for the demanding soprano. And while the top of her vocal range wasn't entirely pleasant, her bottom notes were expressive without being too dark or muddled.

Marcelo Álvarez as Mario Cavaradossi at times showed-off gorgeous high notes, while his acting was convincing and thoughtful. A fine, if slightly unexciting Cavaradossi. Music Director James Levine (who made his Met debut conducting Tosca in 1971) ducked his head and forged forward with his orchestra, slowing down tempi at times that left the action on stage too static. Vissi d'arte was slowed-down to a point of nonrecognition, almost bringing the aria to a grinding halt.

George Gagnidze replaced last-minute Finnish bass-bariton, Juha Uusitalo, who pulled out as Scarpia due to illness (shame, as his Scarpia played opposite Mattila in the 2006 Finnish National Opera's Tosca). He played the menacing, cruel aristocrat without all the comedic flashings of a villain (thankfully). The one sore spot was his fateful death, a bit too hammy, all that upside-down floundering that was supposed to be gritty and visceral, but came across as drawn-out, a fish floundering for air (nor was it aided by Mattila's slightly glazed-over indifference). Bondy's big ideas were all there, but executed in a rushed, half-baked blocking. His ideas lacked full fruition, but the foundation was solid. With a different cast and different conductor, this production could be stellar: Stick around for a swapped-out (and frankly, upgraded) roster in April 2010, starring Daniela Dessì as Tosca, Jonas Kaufmann and Marcello Giordani splitting Cavaradossi, Bryn Terfel and Gagnidze sharing Scarpia, and Joseph Colaneri and Philippe Auguin with the conducting duties. 

Act II's soaring assembly room of mustards and browns hearkened to Fascist Italy, with the three whores of Scarpia lounging on the red velvet couches. Shortcomings? We wish there had been more whores! As opposed to the uber-sexual Robert Carsen that always puts the thunder in our Yamamotos and trills in our panties, Bondy had difficulties with staging the eroticism of the opera, and rather, fell back on unimaginative representations of sex to provoke the lust. The excellent costumes of Milena Canonero, the Turin-born costumière and Otto Schenk co-conspirator, helped smooth over the bumps effectively as a three time Academy Award winner (for Barry Lyndon, Chariots of Fire, and Marie Antoinette, tho she also did the costumes for A Clockwork Orange, The Cotton Club, and Out of Africa). 

Sets were well-constructed and elegant, designed by French set designer Richard Peduzzi (long-time collaborator with Patrice Chéreau, to which you'll see his work later this Fall in Janáček’s From the House of the Dead with Esa-Pekk) who was also making his Metropolitan Opera debut. Act III, the prison and ramparts of Castel Sant'Angelo were laid bare, elegant and understated, the perfect backdrop for such tragedy.

The traditionalists had been fearing this opening night for ages, another push that the old, craggy singers of their glory days go buried along with Zeffirelli's sets, irrelevant and mute. But Zeffirelli's going-thru-the-motions Tosca is what the Metropolitan audiences want anyway (listen, the MET is an American opera house for patriots only and it's cool and all that you like drinking tea and eating dumplings or whatever the hell they do in your third-world country for fun, but this is America and we don't have to cater to you). Europe's best intellects get filleted by the MET (Graham Vick). No (obvious) knife, no candles rolled through by the prop department -- is this what really makes a theatrically artistic vision so detestable?

Props can be left to the imagination if one is willing to stretch their comfort zones so far. Opening night at the MET, it was apparently too much to ask.

Comments

[Taylors]

It's so refreshing to finally read a review that wasn't all negativity or full of glee that the "scary foreigner" got rightly booed. What a pleasure. I can't believe that so many narrow minded people are getting so hung up over a too small knife, folding chairs in a church, or a stupid mannequin.

[renegade maestro]

"listen, the MET is an American opera house for patriots only"

I just had to quote this for great justice. You slay me, OC.

[Furst]

Hey! We liked 1985, even if we were a bit too much of a tyke to enjoy it fully - not that we want to be any older.

We don't know about burgers but the lamb chops at La Bernadin can be excellent, although one is obviously better of going with the fish and a yummy, and, all in all, reasonably priced Comte Lafon.

Thanks for the great review OC.

[Donna Anna]

Reasonable, thoughtful and, as always, beautifully expressed. I'm sorry I'll be in NYC after the run but I'll watch it on HD--it will be interesting to see how it translates onto the screen.
Good night and sweet dreams, dear cica.

[roberto]

I find it more than a little patronizing that you assume that most people who disliked the Bondy production did so because they are fans of the Zefferelli production and/or are artistically conservative. I never saw the Zeferelli production and therefore have nothing to miss or be nostalgic over, nor am I artistically conservative. I disliked the Bondy production on it's merits (or lack thereof). Your theory about New Yorkers needing 1980's comfort food is clever, but over-simplifying things and, from the discussions I was having with people, incorrect.

Having read your review I find that you have more negatives to say about it than positives, so I wonder what it is you actually liked. According to you Bondy flubbed the eroticism, Bondy flubbed the murder, Bondy did not direct Mattila strongly enough as her chracterization was not entirely convincing (who but Bondy was responsible for Mattila's "slightly glazed over indifference" certainly not as strong or ipassioned an actress as Mattila)

I found the sets ugly, the costumes ugly, the direction actually quite... directionless. The singers seemed to be left to themselves to walk up and down, here and there, until certain key points that Bondy wanted to make (Scarpia making out with the statue of the Madonna etc). Where was the point of view? What new insights were presented? It didn't even seem to me to have any theatricality. Rather than be a "thinking man's TOSCA" I found it to be a dumbing down of TOSCA with every idea writ large in capital letters. Scarpia is a sex maniac; let's have him hump a statue and get serviced by whores. Tosca is jealous, let's have her stab a portrait. I saw no attempt at subtlety, at trying to find any layers in these characters' personalities. Nor was it a ripping good yarn. It was just flat and grim.

Other singers and conductors may make more of it, but these are the performers Bondy worked with, so any shortcomings of the production really have to be laid at his door.

[El Cajon]

From the general tenor of the criticism of this production, I am SOOO glad I didn't spend my kopeks for even a ticket to the HD telecast, must less the production itself. The PBS telecast will be enough.

And aside from the Te Deum/Act I finale, what is there to really like about this opera, anyway? Well, maybe if your cast includes truly great singing actors. Otherwise, I'd rather sit on an ant hill than sit through another Tosca.

[Rommie233]

OC I find your review just a tad unfair. I never saw the Zeff production... but I booed it because I felt the direction was really really bad. Mattila and Alvarez's movements in Act 1 (and Mattila's in 2) did not make sense.

I can sense your frustration with the Met audiences... but you give us far too little credit I think. Isn't this the audience revolution u want from us?

We don't boo singers because we understand that singers' abilities for the show are affected by day-to-day circumstance. Production teams, however, have months upon months (even years!) to make sure everything works out properly--notes on the dress rehearsal: the production team was panicking during the dress rehearsal... i ask, why???

[Prompter1980]

El Cajon:

"And aside from the Te Deum/Act I finale, what is there to really like about this opera, anyway?"

I don't know. What is there to really like about Puccini anyway, especially to the point that everyone and their mother constantly seems to perform only Nessun Dorma and Mio Babbino Caro as if no other aria, or composer, even existed? What is it really about Giacomo 3-minutes of beautiful music in between 2 hours of crap Puccini (or in Fanciulla del West's case, literally 1 minute of beautiful music between 2 hours of crap) is something I always wondered about, but I'm aware it's not for this thread. What's for this thread is that, apparently, it has something to do with the fact that most opera singers today can at least sing *him*.

[Constantine A. Papas]

What the three prostitutes have to do with Puccini's Tosca? The director claims he sticks to the text. Did Puccini, somewhere in the libretto, had group sex in mind? I've seen Frank Z's Tosca twice. It's dense but it make some semse. Now, we have Ameritrash to match Eurotrash.

[Les Mitchell]

There is no more "grand opera". The stage directors have taken over the opera world and have all but killed it dead. More importantly, while we appreciate the beauty of such artists as Renee Fleming, Juan Diego Florez, Sondra Radvanowsky, Jonas Kauffman, etc, there simply aren't enough of them around to put their foot down on some of these productions they appear in. Look back into the 1950's, 1960's, and even the 1970's. Would singers like Milanov, Tebaldi, Callas, Nilsson, Sutherland, or Schwarzkopf ever consent to appear in such productions as we have today? Along with others like Corelli, Freni, Berganza, Horne, Scotto, Domingo, Gedda, etc, singers had a lot more power and clout than they do now. To have made singers of THAT generation appear in such productions would have been cause for them to commit murder. I've read many times that Callas used to always complain about the Met productions of Norma, Tosca, Lucia, and Traviata she had appeared in. I wonder what she'd say if she were with us today??????????

[Claudia4Ever]

okay so one last comment.... i just got home from a screening of the upcoming HD film La Boheme done in Vienna with Villazon/Netrebko (filmed last fall). suffice it to say, it was INCREDIBLE. Unbelievable; gut-wrenching, emotionally draining (in a great way), reach down into my depths of soul artistry in voice AND acting.... yes, it is THAT GOOD. due for US launch in the winter. director was glad not to be boo'ed as was the case Monday night @ the Met Opera's opening. all i can offer is that at the end of it all, the artistry of voice MATTERS; acting too. passion most of all. as i read thru all the chatter about Tosca, Bondy, the singers, now having had the kind of opera experience i USED to have at the Met in this film - i would offer that the whole discomfort with the production, scenery, is fairly irrelevant when the singing and acting are nothing short of breathtaking. i hope to feel that again sometime at a met production, regardless if it's "new", "evolved", or "traditional."

for those in NYC & DC, there is one more US screening over the wknd; i encourage those of you who can go, to go! it's a doozie! :-)

[Lou Ann D]

Roberto --- well said. So good night OC and good night Tosca!

[Dan]

Les, I find it interesting that you think the stage directors have "killed" opera "dead," when what you seem to want is opera as artifact. When something no longer evolves or is no longer subject to changes in cultures, it is, anthropologically speaking, DEAD. Like Latin, but I'm sure you don't go around speaking that.

It's like Shakespeare. We revere him. We think he's the bee's knees and the greatest living writer in English ever, and to many people, he is a God. But the people who put on productions to worship Shakespeare are the ones who are killing it. The same goes for our opera.

Sometimes people get it right. Sometimes they get it wrong. Maybe Bondy, in your estimation, got it wrong. But that hardly means that he didn't put a lot of energy into making it try to be alive.

And can we all please STFU already about what Puccini "intended"? I mean, yea, he made some notes about the candles, but I don't think his world would come crashing down if he knew that a production had dispensed with them. In fact, I think he'd be flattered to know that people CARE about his operas today, a century after they premiered. If he's rolling over in his grave, it's out of anxiety to add his voice to the debate. He was, after all, an artist.

And regarding intentions, there's also the messy business of source texts and librettists and other collaborators such that while one person may be said to have had more influence over the story than others, no single person is the complete and singular author of a work of art. We recreate books when we read them, movies when we see them, music when we hear it. It's alive in a different way each time. And for an artist to have his work reimagined as much as Puccini has, it's an honor. And I doubt very much he'd enjoy it if no one had ideas about his work.

But what I can't understand is why everyone has gotten such a major wedgie from Bondy's production. Because here's the thing: It wasn't at all "HIGH-CONCEPT." It was pretty straight-forward Tosca. There were little things, yes, and he reimagined scenes. But making sets less opulent (and possibly more realistic because they don't pretend to construct a past that they don't know) hardly qualifies the director of a production as engaging in Regietheatre practices. Neither does the removal of a big, glistening knife. It't not like Brecht directed the thing. It's not like it is Freyer's LA Ring, or Herheim's deconstructed Entfuhrung at Salzburg 3 years ago.

And I hate it when, if the director of a production reimagines the text, the drama, they are seen as condescending. Why not see it as a challenge? They're not treating you like children. They're treating you like intelligent adults who can understand what they are trying to do, and trust you to at least try to get it.

I'm not saying people can't have their complaints. If the production didn't do it for you, that's fine. Just make sure that your objections are as well-reasoned, thought-out, and devoid of logical flaws as you wish Bondy's production was.

Also, no one at Callas' time, not even the directors, would dream of putting sex on stage. And A LOT, has changed, not just opera, since Callas. I don't think that's a valid argument. And one last thing: OF COURSE Callas complained.

[vale]

I guess all you people who defend this sort of "work" just don't understand how off balance it is. The real center core is missing from this one. I'll take the old B&W live ones with Tebaldi, Callas, et al: they were not all hyped up Zefirelli productions. Most of them were just built around the right axis. If you read what Tosca, Cavardossi and Scarpia sing about, you'll realize what the opera is about... certainly not about teh presence or abscence of fluff.

[Ian]

I find it really interesting that a few days after the Met is booed for being "too regie" (!!) that Paris' opening night is booed for being too traditional...

[Puck Swami]

The lively debate between art vs. entertainment, traditional vs. cutting edge and composer's intention vs. director's intention is exactly what keeps opera vital and evolving. Without such risk, there is stagnation and irrelevance. The real debate is how far should the dials be turned between the standard and the re-imagined...

The reality is that the vast majority of opera lovers flock to the genre for good at mid life, where they have enough life experience (and an attention span!) of their own to truly understand the power of the human voice to connect with the timeless operatic themes of love, loss, politics, treachery, and tragedy.

While the settings may change around the singers to reflect new ideas, the quality of the music and the voices are still the driving forces for the truly engaged.

May it awalys be so.

[La Cieca]

La Cieca hearts Dan!

[kitty]

"Having read your review I find that you have more negatives to say about it than positives, so I wonder what it is you actually liked. "

This is my question too. I haven't seen this production but based on what I'll read I'll second a poster above and will probably wait until the PBS broadcast.

But so far the critics of this production clearly express what they don't like about it. But those who liked it seem to simply like it because it is not Zeffirelli.

And just because it's possible now to put sex on stage, do we really need to? Is it anywhere in the score? Libretto? Now, I'd imagine a scene from Romeo and Juliet to be sexual or from Tristan und Isolde, but I haven't read anything in Tosca's libretto or hear in the music that calls for sex.

[Gilliad]

Good, let the New Yorkers have their moment of fame. Let them for once make headlines in the international world of opera happenings. 384 days a year no one outside of New York could really care less what's going on there, so let them have their moment. If think booing a first class opera director is the way to get famous, so be it.

Sometimes a baby must be dragged kicking and screaming from his mother's breast. Tough love, New York. Opera has changed, and the sooner it is accepted, the better it is for everyone. Leave Zefferelli's convoluted sets in the past where they belong with your grandmother's lace.

[rtfavata]

I was their Monday night, it was my 8th Tosca. I can assure you, no one ever "booed" the others. The act is Bondy with Gelb's blessing did not adhere to the Puccini libretto on several occasions and some things were even laughable. The opening scene is a church, well, don't you think it should at least look like a church, it looked like a warehouse, no curcifix, no indication your in a church. just the obscene painting of Mary showing her breast, as though that would appear in ay church!!The second scene the same drab set, with furnitue that looked like it came out of Ikea, not the 19th century period the opera is supposed to take place. The last scene the worst, had a silly firing squad scene, an even more suicide scenr (a mechanical dummy coming out of a window as the lights go out). The fact is the sets were terrible and the director did not follow Puccini's play. This abortion of an opera should have been labeld "Puccini's Tosca as interpreted by Luc Bondy" then at lease we would know what we are getting. Peer Gelb says "nothing will change", well their is one thing, I will not come back to any Luc Bondy directed operas and I certainly will not come back to Tosca if not changed and that goes for abut 50% of the true opera lovers their that night. This is when the financial implication will take hold. It's time for the directors of Lincoln center to do their job and consider what is best for the Met in the future, this is not it.

[Carlos]

You should not assume that the Met audience is narrow-minded and not open to new ideas and interpretations of classic operas.

The new Madama Butterfly is a great production. Audiences love it.

Audiences see the new Tosca for what it is: uninspired and simple-minded. The Met management should get rid of it as soon as possible.

[Dan]

rtfavata:

First thing's first: SPELLING. I'm an English major, and although I'm not a stickler for grammatical rules and all that nonsense (some of our best writers forgo them), SPELLING really lights a fire in my pants. You were THERE, not THEIR. Now that that ugly business is out of the way, where to begin? I'll do this one with bullets. I see no other way.

-It is NOT Puccini's libretto. The libretto is the fantastic, slavish work of Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. Like I said, I'm and English major, and I hate hate hate when the librettist, the poor soul who actually WROTE THE WORDS, gets forgotten. Without these men, we wouldn't HAVE Vissi d'arte, or Un bel di vedremo, or Carmen's skanky defiance, or occasion for Enrico Caruso to (apocryphally?) shove a hot sausage--no, not that kind--into Nellie Melba's hand when he was singing to her about how cold they were. Wagner, of course, is a genius--and maniacal, and socailly problematic, for obvious reasons--exception.

My point being, and I've said it before: It's not just Puccini's opera. And it's not just Zeffirelli's. And it's not just Bondy's or Callas'. It's everyone's. It's the director's and it's the singer's/actor's and it's the audience member's and it's the stagehand's. Everyone plays a part in constructing it, just as many people played a part in its writing. When you get right down to it, there were probably parts of it Puccini was not okay with, or absolutely detested, and we'll never know.

What we should know is that there really can't be a definitive authority on it. Tradition is NOT an authority, however much you or my beloved Catholic Church would love it to be so. I actually think a lot of the direction in this production was spotty, and there were choices that I absolutely did not agree with. But I'm not ready to throw the baby out with the bath water, because no work of art is going to mean the same thing to two different people, and I thank God or Allah or Buddha or whoever that we've got all these interpretations to love, hate, and keep us engaged.

--Have you been to churches in Italy? If you haven't, I'll tell you that most of them do not look like one of Saddam's palaces, especially their back chapels. If you have, then I don't apologize, but I ask: why is it such a big deal if Bondy imagined this scene in a not so opulent room in a not so opulent Church?

--Many, many, many, many, many churches I've been to have paintings with breasts exposed. And no, I'm not confusing a church for Hurricane Betty's Live Nude Dancers Club. They were churches, hand to (appropriately) God.

--Women have breasts. Let's not deny it. And sometimes people paint them.

--On how the opera is "supposed to take place in the 19th century." Lord, give me strength. Yes, the story is about the 19th century. But if you're not for one minute going to allow productions of theatre--and opera IS theatre, then why don't we just do away with all productions of Shakespeare or Racine or Pirandello or Wilde or Sophocles or Aristophanes or Seneca. Why the hang-up on pinpoint historical accuracy? Why the insistence that certain pieces of art exist in a historical vacuum? If Puccini or Illica or anyone else wanted them to exist there, they would have written it and sealed it in a time capsule that read: "Open in the year NEVER."

--I'll admit I found the dummy to be silly and sort of a let down. Certainly Puccini didn't order that in "his" libretto? He also didn't order electric lighting, HD broadcasts, a 4,000-seat theatre (there I go throwing that word around again--silly me!), or modern make-up. Really, if opera was produced and experienced with the same constraints and under the same conditions as in Puccini's time, we'd all leave the house with consumption and, in all likelihood, and nasty case of syphillis.

--In other news: Bizet, Meilhac, and Halevy never demanded donkeys be crapping onstage in every production of Carmen.

--I fail to see how calling it an "abortion" makes any sense at all. Was it successful? Was it botched? Please be more specific.

--If it should have said "Tosca as interpreted by Luc Bondy," then every production needs to be titled that. Under current budget constraints, I don't think the MET has enough ink.

--You may be right about the financial implications, but I doubt it. Where did you pull that fifty percent number from? I'm pretty sure I only need one guess.

--What is "best" for the Met financially is to be conservative. What is best for it artistically is open for debate!

--There is more than one way to be a "true opera lover," my friend, and denying that those who disagree with you don't fit the bill is not one of them.

As I said, I had problems with the production, but I'm not out for blood. I'm not going to go into them either, because I'm just here to rain on the Haters' Parade and point out what I think is wrong, wrong, wrong.

The changes didn't offend me. If you wanted to see real sex onstage (manual and oral) then you should have gone to Bieito's production of Gluck's Armida at Komische. But silly and gross as it is, it doesn't offend me. Then again, my favorite TV show ever is Strangers With Candy. Watch it on Hulu.

I'm rambling, and I'm exhausted. Addio.

[Alejandro]

I just got back from tonight's performance of Tosca, and I must say this was as awful as people made it out to be. The design was uniformly awful--particularly the Act 2 set which was so spread out, the singers had no choice but to pace and pace and pace basically killing all dramatic tension from what is one of the most dramatic acts in opera. The Act 3 set with the "water" surrounding the Castel Saint Angelo was laughable. Don't get me started on the Madonna grab and the "jump" (which reminded me of a Disney ride where an audio animatronic dummy pops out a window like a cuckoo).

Levine was out tonight and Gagnidze lip synced the 2nd Act because he was sick (there was a baritone singing live Stage Right) . . . and I could barely hear him in Act One. I like Mattila a lot and while her voice is a bit out of place here, I could have lived with it had she been able to act the hell out the part as she did with Salome and Leonore. But she had very little useful direction from Bondy and she just seemed melodramatic throughout . . . and why does she look so gorgeous in the promo shots and looks so frumpy in the actual costumes? I wanted to see the Tosca the ads promised us . . . that looked cutting edge, sexy and dramatic which is everything this Tosca was not.

[kitty]

"Have you been to churches in Italy? If you haven't, I'll tell you that most of them do not look like one of Saddam's palaces, especially their back chapels."

Actually I visited most of Rome's churches. Depending on when a particular church was built, it may look very opulent or more simple.

However, according to libretto the action of Tosca takes place in a very specific church: St Andrea della Valle. This is a baroque church, and is actually quite ornate. Baroque in general is not known for simplicity.

[Linda Smith]

New productions are fine as long as they serve the composer and the music. If it's more of a distraction than anything then why do it? Different singers might be able to put this over in future (such as those mentioned above); I'll make an effort to see it next year!

[MARCELLA PISCOLA]

no color contrasts at all....who was who....scarpia not in his military attire...the church scene....no, did not in any way look like a place of worship...the gate where angelotti went...looked like a closet....scarpia's office without a commanding desk and dinner table and with ladies of the night...yuk, yuk, yuk....no candles......for the body....???....tosca was on the run....not here....the last act..tosca should have been a beautiful gown....i could go on and on,,,,,but to sum it up.......EVERYTHING WAS BLACK...MY THANKS TO THE SINGERS.....SUPERB

[Jim Kadel]

On Broadway shows close quickly when they don't make it. I wonder how long Met opera productions last when they simply don't cut it, like this one? I try to be a realist and allow for productions of this opera that even move the venue to another time like the 1920 gangster era in USA. But I draw the line in any production when Puccini's great dramatics of the 2nd act finale is removed! The music plays the notes of "knife discovery" and she already has stowed it. At the end of this act, the music rises and falls telling a tale of Tosca's inner termoil and emphasizing her actions...but there are no actions!! Tosca sits with her back to us looking out the window as Puccini's dramatic music is, in effect, wasted. Oh wow, I'm sorry but this is a terrible rendition.

[Brian Budgen]

Brian Budgen Australia

After having viewed the HD telecast of the new Met 'Tosca' I have to say that I was disappointed with the staging. Speaking as a set designer myself, the set must at all times underplay the action and never really be the star of the show. However the sets for this production go too far in that direction. Plain and ordinary and aspiring to a dark and sinister time in the history of Italy they are just ugly. There is no reason why the sets could not have portrayed the era more faithfully or the actual locations for that matter and still underplay the action. Tosca is an actors opera and needs actor singers.Those actor singers need the full attention of the audience - so I guess in this sense I agree with bondi's production. however, one of the contradictions in the opera is the grandeur of the settings against the sordidness of the action and story and this should be kept, not discarded with. The idea of freeze framing the death leap of the heroine was ridiculous and reduced the climax to a mimic of a modern day tv movie that 'does not show the gruesome scenes in order not to offend'. I found it a cliched gimmick at best. The main character performances were good in spite of poor direction from Bondi - movement wise they seemed a bit lost most of the time. The first act finale is a classic case in point. I have never seen a more haphazard and lifeless staging of the TeDeum. A portrait of that nature would never have been allowed in a curch at the time the opera was set and they generally painted FRESCOES in those situations anyway - ON THE WALL OF THE CHURCH. The overstatement of Scarpias filthy letcherism was comic book stuff as was his henchmen( all Mussolinilike as they were!!)
A comic book version of the Opera generally - not worthy of the Met.