A Truly American (Italian) Opera

Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West

New York City Opera

Rose Theater

September 6, 2017

Nobody move! Minnie takes charge
Photo credit: Sarah Shatz

Where has La Fanciulla del West been all my life? It was such an exciting and surprising discovery that I think it might be my favorite Puccini opera to date, especially in terms of plot. Whereas he can often be too cloyingly melodramatic, too saccharine for my taste in some of his more canonical verismo standards, La Fanciulla, once it gets going, tells the compelling story of an empowered woman risking life and limb to realize her dream of true love and marital bliss. I say “once it gets going” because like La Bohème, the first act of this proto-spaghetti western of an opera feels on first listen a bit bogged down by exposition.

The Polka Bar is the heart of the community of miners
Photo credit: Sarah Shatz

Yet the first act is deceptively tight despite seeming relatively sprawling. The libretto covers a lot of ground. Structurally it sets up for everything that is to come. The men are are lonely. They swill their whiskey straight and are intolerant of anyone who drinks it any other way. But they are also suckers for mail from home and softies when it comes to a nurturing lesson from Scripture – though they are also given to stacking the deck against the dealer at the gambling table. All of the later plot points are all established in this early series of tableaux that follow one right after the other.

The men busy themselves with drink, cards, Bible lessons
Photo credit: Sarah Shatz

A lot of this flow depends on the tempos coming out of the pit. James Meena conducted a well-paced rendition of the score. The multifaceted series of set pieces in the first act hurled right along. Everything clicked in terms of narrative rhythm.

The content-rich first act then gives way to the fast-paced, action-packed second and third acts. There are even hints of Tosca in the story: brutal law enforcement officer lusts after the leading lady who is also a prominent figure in her community, here she is the proprietor of the local watering hole, and has to compete for her attentions against an outlaw, sans the execution and suicide.

Minnie is beset by men from the beginning
Photo credit: Sarah Shatz

New York City Opera’s multi-partner collaboration presents a simple, no frills, unfussy production. The staging did its job without distracting from culminating plot points, like the big scene where Minnie robs the sheriff of his prize by cheating at cards. The dramatic turn of events in that climactic moment was almost cinematic in terms of its creation of suspense. If the world of the miners and the Polka bar they haunt came to life only in part thanks to Ivan Stefanutti’s minimal but effective set designs, then the music coming out of the pit did more than pick up the slack.

Minnie scams the evil sheriff at poker
Photo credit: Sarah Shatz

In addition to buoying the suspenseful dramatic twists and turns in the plot, the score also heightens some very emotionally moving moments, particularly the tenor’s redemption aria in the second act and Minnie’s plea for a reprieve for her beloved outlaw in the third.

But there were awkward moments as well. The opera is, after all, sung in Italian and it’s full of expressions that perhaps Puccini thought would convey an American flair (Ugh!, Hallo!, whisky, Urrah!) that end up sounding like a spaghetti western badly translated back into Italian. Nevertheless, a dynamic and charismatic all-male chorus did justice to their caricatures, all things considered.

Johnson says his prayers before execution
Photo credit: Sarah Shatz

Jonathan Burton leant his manly and moving tenore spinto skills to the role of the outlaw in disguise, known variously as Johnson or Ramerrez. His Act II climactic mini-aria in which his proclamation of love for Minnie and his promise to change his lifestyle in accordance with that commitment was underwritten by Burton’s heartfelt vocal surge in emotion and conviction. When he kicked into the full-throated cry of a tenor emoting he bore it all, both heart and soul, so that there was no doubt as to the sincerity of his sentiments, despite his other duplicitous behavior.

Soprano Kristin Sampson played the barkeep, Minnie, as a real go-getter but with a soft side, not unlike the all-too-similar character played by Joan Crawford in Nicholas Ray’s Johnny Guitar. She sang with an almost Wagnerian might and forcefulness. But she was also tender in the maternal moments she shares with her regular customers in their miner community, an all around dynamic character, played with tact by Sampson.

Tough as nails, Minnie longs for one thing only: true love
Photo credit: Sarah Shatz

Minnie is a modern heroine for a brave new world. Such a compelling strong no-nonsense leading lady! Nothing like those wimpy suicidal creatures who usually inhabit the operatic stage, she is an enterprising, independent, strong yet gracious woman who is equally at ease when teaching Bible lessons in humane behavior to a bunch of illiterate miners, as she is fiercely defending their hard-earned gold, dolling up for her date and cheating at poker to save the man she loves – not to mention shootin’ ’em up, left and right. Poom! Poom! Nobody messes with Minnie!

True love in the making
Photo credit: Sarah Shatz

La Fanciulla del West is a tale of compassion and second chances – even a bandit can have a change of heart if he meets the right girl. And they can live happily ever after walking together into the sunset of the great American West. While conceived by an Italian, this opera embodies the quintessential American traits of optimism, happy endings and fierce individuality. When it’s all said and done, so unlike Puccini’s other verismo fare. Cheesy, maybe – but refreshing, moving and uplifting too. Again, so very American.

– Lei & Lui

Love is worth the gamble!

From Noon to Midnight at the Met, Part II

Turandot

Giacomo Puccini

Metropolitan Opera

October 3, 2015

Zeffirelli's grand Orientalist extravaganza
Photo credit: Marty Sohl

After having seen just a few hours earlier the Goya-dark and emotions-stirring Trovatore matinee, the Turandot evening show on the very same stage felt like a kitschy operatic Disneyland – all glitter but no depth or complexity of any sort. And we experienced Puccini’s Oriental extravaganza in its best possible form (Zeffirelli’s grand production) with a sensational cast (Goerke, Alvarez, Gerzmava). The performance was truly spectacular, the way a Turandot should be. One could see why this is a house-filling blockbuster: elaborate sets that create an exotic fantasyland, extremely straightforward fairy tale plot and dozens of dancers and singers swarming all over the stage, doing all sorts of eye-catching stuff. Had I seen Turandot any other evening, I would have probably been pretty excited about it, but catching it on the same day I witnessed the best Trovatore ever, I really could not help but compare the two operas and the Verdi one was the clear winner for me, mostly because I found the plot way more multi-layered, relatable and interesting than Puccini’s. No matter how gorgeous the music, if the narrative does not captivate me, I simply don’t enjoy an opera as much.

Disneyland glitz in all its glory at the Met
Photo credit: Marty Sohl

Putting aside the sets’ many bells and whistles and the excellent lead singers, the Met Orchestra and the Met Chorus, led by maestri Paolo Carignani and Donald Palumbo, respectively, were the true protagonists of this piece. The orchestration was through the roof. I never heard the Met Orchestra playing like that. So loud, so full. So grandiose. And the Met Chorus as the Peking mob and the court at Turandot’s imperial palace was truly sensational and carried the opera through, matching the explosive grandiosity of the orchestra.

Calaf mourns the loss of Liu
Photo credit: Marty Sohl

When it comes to Turandot’s individual singers and smaller ensembles, though, while there were many perfectly enjoyable moments, very few were memorable or captivating to me. And not for any singer’s fault. It’s just that the opera itself does not have more than a handful of truly compelling arias, basically Nessun dorma by prince Calaf and Tanto amore segreto by the loving slave Liu before she kills herself. Nessun dorma is one of the most famous operatic arias ever, as Sir Denis Forman put it in Night at the Opera, this “wonderful aria shines out, pure Italian gold, amidst all the surrounding exotica. It has a sweeping line, a great climax and if you don’t fall for this you might as well give up hope of a good relationship with Italian opera.”

Timur and his faithful Liu fare their way
Photo credit: Marty Sohl

The Argentine tenor Marcelo Alvarez was a force of nature as Calaf. This singer is growing on me every time I see him. He truly rides orchestras and has a manly melodic power that is a pleasure to hear and at times pretty gut stirring, too. I particularly liked his soaring Nessun dorma and the power with which he attacked his responses to the three riddles. Russian up-and-coming soprano Hibla Gerzmava was a moving and intense Liu. I will be interested to see her again in other roles. American dramatic soprano Christine Goerke as the ice princess Turandot had impressive and almost thunderous power, however, her lines are pretty declamatory in nature and there’s not much expressivity that can come out of that no matter how good the singer.

Trovatore and Turandot together total more than Die Meistersinger, however, after spending over six hours at the Met, I actually felt pretty exhilarated about the Verdi + Puccini operatic overload – which I could not really say after equally long yet painful Wagnerian experiences. Just another confirmation of the fact that I can take Italian opera in huge doses but continue to have digestive issues with Wagner...

– Lei & Lui

The ice princess Turandot remains impenetrable
Photo credit: Marty Sohl

A Southern Italian Odyssey of Betrayal and Murder

Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana / Leoncavallo’s I Pagliacci

Metropolitan Opera 

April 14, 2015

The two faces of the star of the show.
Photo Credit: Metropolitan Opera

The Met’s new production of Cavalleria Rusticana is a solemn and downtrodden outing. Purportedly set over Easter weekend in Sicily where the oranges are supposed to hang redolent on the air alongside the square (Aranci olezzano sui verdi margini) and the sunshine of springtime in southern Italy ought to burn brightly, Sir David McVicar’s new setting is instead dark and brooding. All we get is a stark “piazza” and minimalist details that do little to set the scene no matter how effective they are for transitions between piazza, church, tavern, home, and back again. While I’m not necessarily against essential productions, this one definitely missed the mark. I could not get over the darkness that made the whole thing feel more like a northern European Protestant winter rather than a Sicilian Catholic spring. 

Sicilian Easter on McVicar's set in all its starkness.
Photo Credit: Metropolitan Opera

To me the Sicilian land, with its almost violently bright sunlight and generous nature, is an important character in Cavalleria. A place of strong contrasts, torrid and sensual, stirring irresistible passions that lead to tragic impulsive acts. McVicar’s sets, with the only touch of color being a basket of tomatoes in the market scene, if anything stirred a sad gloominess, but certainly nothing remotely sensual or impulsive, which is kind of the point of this opera. On the other hand, the costumes were very Sicilian. And the opening passages of the opera, both its in medias res serenade and initial choruses, are sung in Sicilian dialect which is very musical. But it was a bit strange to hear foreign voices intone these southern accents. It does not quite compute in the mouth of singers who sounded more comfortable singing German. But oh well. Opera is an international art form, as it almost always has been.

Lola amidst her people.
Photo Credit: Cory Weaver/Metropolitan Opera

I’m usually not a fan of verismo opera, especially when in the hands of Puccini when he is at his sappiest in La Boheme. But there is something irresistibly evocative and viscerally suggestive, almost seductive and sexy to me about Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana. There is something to be said about bringing verismo back to its original literary roots in Italy. As a movement it is often placed in a league with the gritty urban French “naturalism” of Emile Zola. But the Italian verismo of Giovanni Verga, the author of the play and short story on which the opera is based, is driven by a different set of social and geographic concerns that are determined largely by its roots in Sicilian peasant life, rather than the underbelly of Parisian life. Verga gives us a different kind of striving and struggling and suffering in the figures of his fishermen, peasants and other subaltern individuals and it translates to the opera stage far more effectively. 

Santuzza implores Turiddu.
Photo Credit: Metropolitan Opera 

The orchestra led by maestro Fabio Luisi plowed through the stunning score with intensity and beauty. For Mascagni’s is such beautiful music. And so unconventional in many ways with its opening in medias res and its two choral introductory passages alternating with musical interludes. The singing was also mostly phenomenal. Marcelo Alvarez as the cold-blooded mamma’s boy, Turiddu, was a revelation. While I’ve seen him before, this was the first time he really impressed me. Alvarez burst onto the scene with a full round tenor sound that we don’t get nearly enough at the Met. He was manly and masculine and full chested as he made easy work of his long legato lines. 

I was particularly moved by his “Tu qui, Santuzza,” about halfway through, when he lets his spurned lover know that he is not a slave to her insane jealousy because he intends to go back to his previous lover – nevermind the fact that she is now rather inconveniently married to the biggest, baddest bass baritone in town, who also just happens to like to crack his whip any chance he gets (Schiocca la frusta). The “Tu qui, Santuzza” scene evolves beautifully from a standoffish put down (Bada, Santuzza, schiavo non sono) to a passionate duet in which the audience witnesses the depth of the love bond these characters actually do share (No, no, Turiddu, rimani ancora). Even if the text of what they’re saying to each other dramatizes their unfriendly separation and Turiddu’s insistent leavetaking, Mascagni has scored it in such a way that underscores their contrapuntal affection. It is the stuff that heart-wrenching drama is made of. And Alvarez and Westbroek brought it forcefully to life. I was tingling all over.  

Turiddu and Santuzza have a moment.
Photo Credit: Metropolitan Opera

Soprano Eva-Maria Westbroek’s Santuzza was beautifully acted and powerfully sung. I find Santuzza’s plight heartbreaking. Poor Santuzza and all that she is forced to endure at the whims of this cowardly mammone (mamma’s boy). I mean, come on, Turiddu is supposed to marry her but betrays her, lies to her face and goes to church (!) with his lover Lola right under Santuzza’s nose. Also, he is not even enough of a man to stand behind his actions and runs whining to his mamma Lucia all the time. What an immature jerk! He really does seem to get what he deserves when Lola’s irascible husband Alfio finally kills him. 

"A te, la mala Pasqua!"
Photo Credit: Cory Weaver/Metropolitan Opera

My one big qualm with Westbroek’s performance is the way in which she chose to embody the “mala Pasqua” curse she levels at her offender at the end of their big showdown scene. When a southern Italian, especially a Sicilian woman, intones a mala Pasqua against you, they say it like they mean it. We’re talking Medea-style, chthonic earth cult Mediterranean thumos coming at you loud and clear, with the visceral fury of a wounded wild animal. When Westbroek got to it she sang it with a weary worn out desperation that half seemed like she didn’t really mean it, especially when accompanied by facial expressions and body language that made it seem like she immediately reconsidered what she said, as if she couldn’t believe what she just uttered, rather than unleashing on him the fury of a dishonored southern Italian woman along with all the force of the land that bore and bred her. When a woman like Santuzza issues a mala Pasqua curse, she definitely does not regret it and rides that boiling wave of anger for a long while before calming down. 

Santuzza in the Sicilian borgo.
Photo Credit: Metropolitan Opera

Both Mascagni and Verga give us a pessimistic vision of the lower classes in this Sicilian borgo who are oppressed by culture though they should be uplifted by nature that is springing back to life all around them. But there is no Christ-like resurrection here. No rebirth. Only the struggle of two equally ill-fated individuals, one perhaps more morally just than the other, to live out their passions. There will be no resurrection of the flesh for compar Turiddu this Easter. 

Model of McVicar's early 20th Century Pagliacci set.
Photo Credit: Metropolitan Opera

McVicar’s new Pagliacci on the other hand is an entirely different beast. He sets it in a town square that is bustling with realistic detail including stunning depth of field with an authentic looking southern Italian bar in the farthest reaches of the stage that bristles with small town life – beautiful details that made me nostalgic for small town Italian life. So charming. So gritty. The modernizing touches with respect to the Met’s prior cartoonish production of Pagliacci were just a handful: a truck (instead of a horse-drawn caravan), some telephone poles and electric wires and the visual vocabulary of the vaudeville stage replacing that of the commedia dell’arte. Otherwise this production, while pleasant and visually engaging, felt pretty safe, traditional and not terribly innovative. The contrast with McVicar’s approach to Cavalleria was nevertheless striking. From so stark and lifeless to so bubbling with life, what does he really accomplish dividing the split bill so squarely? 

Canio, the clown is not all laughs.
Photo Credit: Metropolitan Opera

Marcelo Alvarez continued to impress as Canio, a more noble and moving character than that useless and cruel Turiddu. He embodied the painful intertwining between theatrical fiction and harsh reality with a profound, heart-piercing desperation that moved me to tears, particularly in the signature aria Vesti la giubba. His female counterpart, the cheating wife Nedda, was played by soprano Patricia Racette, who positively surprised me with an extremely energetic stage presence and a vocal performance to match it, particularly effective in her duet with her lover Silvio and in the vaudeville performance. Georgian bass-baritone George Gagnidze was also on double duty from Cavalleria (where he played a lumbering lug of an Alfio), here more incisive as the troupe’s hunchback Tonio, also in love with Nedda.

Nedda struts her stuff.
Photo Credit: Metropolitan Opera

While musically and dramatically I prefer Cavalleria over Pagliacci, I did find McVicar’s specific direction choices for the Leoncavallo companion piece more enjoyable and true to the original narrative core when compared to his take on Mascagni. The meta-theatrical themes of Pagliacci came vividly to life in this production’s cheerful Italian village. I cannot help but wonder, though, if they injected some Sicilian sunshine into Cavalleria, what a better show it would have been.

– Lui & Lei

Commedia dell'arte goes Vaudeville.
Photo Credit: Metropolitan Opera

The Fascist, the Singer and her Lover

Puccini's Tosca at the Met

November 2, 2013

Photo credit: The Metropolitan Opera

Lei: This is the tale of Tosca, a fiery brunette (complexion becomes an important plot point), who also just happens to be an opera singer, and her lover Cavaradossi, a tormented painter. Together they suffer the hardships of an oppressive regime, represented by Scarpia, an evil (and perverted) secret police chief. The painter is working on a portrait of Mary Magdalene that depicts a blonde-haired, blue-eyed beauty and causes Tosca to throw a jealous fit, demanding proof of his fidelity – though it seems like her jealousy is part of the couple’s dynamic since they are otherwise profusely lovey-dovey. Politically, Cavaradossi is opposed to the regime in power and helps a fugitive friend in his escape from prison. Enter the evil police chief who suspects the painter and lusts creepily after the singer. From here on, the action only heats up, and violently so. By the beginning of Act Two, the police have captured the painter who refuses to betray his fugitive friend.

The Fascist Scarpia and his three "Graces"
Photo credit: Mary Altaffer

Lui: Though the opera is originally set in Rome 1800, the police chief's study in Act Two of this production is taken directly out of Bernardo Bertolucci's World War II-era thriller, Il Conformista, and so this Tosca is given a decidedly camicia nera, fascism-in-Italy spin. While prostitutes lounge about in various states of undress, the evil chief of police, dressed in fascist black overcoat and vest, paces to-and-fro meditating on how to act on the latest object of his desire. Scarpia is a perverse sexual predator. He ends up fitting the fascist stereotype even in this regard.

Photo credit: Marty Sohl / The Metropolitan Opera

Lei: Scarpia then has the singer come over while his henchmen torture her lover in the next room so she can hear his excruciating cries of pain. Tosca cannot stand it and divulges the escapee's whereabouts. As a result, the painter is condemned to a public hanging for his anti-regime activities. The perverted police chief proposes a deal to the devastated singer: if she lets him use her body for a "quickie" (literally, he says “a te chieggio un istante”), he’ll save the painter by arranging a mock shooting in lieu of a hanging. The singer reluctantly agrees but also very fortuitously finds a knife lying around and, when the evil police chief is about to rape her, she stabs him to death.

Patricia Racette was a fine Tosca with good acting presence, however her singing left me lukewarm, no shivers whatsoever. George Gagnizde’s Scarpia was also acceptable but lacked the cruelty required by the role, both vocally and acting-wise. I think Dmitri Hvorostovsky would make a magnificent Scarpia – now that would be a believable villain (although based on a 2007 interview it sounded like Dmitri was not willing to tackle it quite yet).

Photo credit: The Metropolitan Opera

Lui: Act Three opens beautifully with a subdued orchestral prelude. All of a sudden the melancholic voice of a shepherd boy pierces the scene sending tingles through the house. I was blown away by the sheer beauty of Puccini's orchestral atmospherics. Cavaradossi maintains the "cold dawn" mood of the opening as we find out that he going to give his ring – his last worldly possession – to the guard in exchange for the promise that his last letter will reach his beloved Tosca. The whole scene remains introspective when he breaks into "E lucevan le stelle." He is destitute. He has been imprisoned, mistreated, tortured. He is a bruised-up, bloody mess, and he is about to be executed. In thinking of his true love, he remembers their one big liaison in the park after dark. This is the pain of a man who has been beaten down, who is left with nothing, wanting only to relive one of life's fleeting joys: the unexpected spiritual exaltation of physical intimacy with another person. 

Photo credit: The Metropolitan Opera

This aria is without a doubt the climax of the whole opera, I would argue, its raison d'être. And it is not necessarily an aria in the strict traditional sense. There is no refrain, no repetition, no songy progression. It is pure poetry – a beautifully sustained single crescendo of raw emotion that departs from the sensory experience of beauty, as it is impressed on the memory, and that soars on eagle's wings to the heartfelt recognition that life never got any better than that moment, though its upward flight is stunted by the realization that now all he has to look forward to is his time to die: "Muoio disperato." It is melancholic, bittersweet, and I tingle still at just the thought of hearing it sung live in its narrative context. And this is where Roberto Alagna really stole the show. He took the emotions exactly where they needed to go. It was some of the best singing I've heard from a tenor at the Met in recent memory. It is moments like these that justify my love of the medium. It's everything that matters in life boiled down to three minutes of poetry and feeling expressed through music.

Lei: I am generally not a Roberto Alagna fan. While technically capable and powerful, I usually find his tone not deep or warm enough and at times even fake, as though he does not really mean what he's singing. Nevertheless, in his Act Three embodiment of Cavaradossi’s “E lucevan le stelle” he proved me wrong, showcasing the raw desperate emotion of a man about to die, remembering and longing for the woman he loves. I cried copiously.

Tosca then runs to the imprisoned painter to explain the deal she cut for him, all while providing some theatrical advice on how to feign death when fake-shot. Unfortunately, the singer should have known better than to trust the word of an evil (and perverted) police chief, since the execution turns out to be a very real one, with the painter actually being shot to death by firing squad. The singer cannot believe how utterly evil and untrustworthy the police chief was and, when trapped by his henchmen, she jumps to her death.

Photo credit: Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

I am not a Puccini person. I generally find his operas too cheesy and unnecessarily sappy, with plots that are not complex enough to make the drama of the music really credible. I mean, it’s too bad that Cio-Cio-San is cheated by that colonialist pig Pinkerton and that Mimi dies of tuberculosis, but tragedies like these are simply not intricate enough for my operatic taste. I like works with over-the-top multiple layers of dynamic dramatic tension. Maybe verismo is just not for me. Tosca, however, is a possible exception to my Puccini aversion, and it may be because (at least in Acts Two and Three) it is action packed with several extreme situations that justify the dramatic outbursts of the score.

Lui: After finally seeing Tosca for the first time, I now see clearly the link between Italian neo-realism and Puccini's brand of operatic verismo. I have long been aware of the fact that there is very little raw "realism" to the plotlines of so-called "neo-realist" Italian cinema. Although shot on a shoestring with non-professional actors, the films of Roberto Rossellini and company, nevertheless, have more in common with melodrama.  And this production at the Met emphasized many of these parallels. Seeing that Puccini wrote these harrowing scenes of brute institutional force, political violence and torture in the year 1900, this production demonstrates how he beat Rossellini and the neo-realists of the post-war period to the punch by nearly half a century. The torture and subsequent execution scene are the obvious forerunners to the climax of Roma città aperta and are no less grueling.

Scarpia's Study, Act II
Photo credit: Ken Howard / The Metropolitan Opera

Lei: I saw this Luc Bondy production at the 2011 season opening performance and back then I found it unconventionally interesting, however today I think I may have been blinded by the gala excitement as, after seeing it again, I felt it was really hit and miss. While Tosca does not necessarily have to be a Zeffirellian baroque extravaganza, it does need to give the audience something to engage with. And I think this production takes a “period-minimalist” route that does not always work and is generally so dimly lit that I had to squint through my opera glasses to figure out the sets. While I get the concept that the action takes place in obscure tyrannical times, a little more light would have been good, both for the staging and the eyes of the audience. The first act is all set in the transept of a dark no-frills brick church that it’s just bland, and also historically at odds with the Caravaggio-style painting Cavaradossi is working on. Also, the “Te Deum” scene at the end of the first act just did not work. It is supposed to be a moment of contrast between choral religious fervor and Scarpia’s devilish attitudes, however, in this production the worshipers and the clergy were walking along the transept, behind Scarpia, almost following him, while in a more credible rendition (at least by Roman Catholic standards), the chorus should proceed along the nave of the church, towards the altar, with Scarpia left in the back, scheming his wrongdoings.

The Te Deum scene in Franco Zeffirelli's Tosca at the Met in 1999
Photo credit: Ruby Washington / The New York Times

The Te Deum scene in Luc Bondy's Tosca in 2013
Photo credit: Andrea Mohin / The New York Times

The second act worked better and had some interesting off-libretto variations, such as the three prostitutes entertaining Scarpia while he explains his preference of brutal lust over romantic love (“Ha più forte / sapore la conquista violenta / che il mellifluo consenso”). The torture scene with the bloodstained door letting in a cone of light and Cavaradossi’s laments was also very effective.  

The sets of Act Three were just weird and felt almost incomplete, with an L-shaped fortress structure occupying less than a third of the stage, and the remainder of the space just empty green-black darkness with some streaks of white. If such parking-lot looking space was supposed to be the river Tiber, it was just not represented very vividly.

Photo credit: The Metropolitan Opera 

One thing that worked extremely well in Act Three, however, was the very last scene, where Tosca runs up the stairs escaping Scarpia’s henchmen and jumps off the ledge into the dark. This production shows Tosca’s full body actually leaning out of the tower at an angle that looked extremely credible, with the lights going to black while she’s almost mid-air, cinematographically freezing the sight of Tosca in her extreme suicidal gesture.

Lui: After a slow start in Act One, it was a chilling finale to an emotionally-intense last two acts.

Photo credit: The Metropolitan Opera