(Credit: Emily Cooper)

What a time for “Tosca!” With revolution in the air from the streets of Paris to Tel Aviv it’s the perfect moment for Puccini’s classic. Vancouver Opera’s production that opened October 24th took place as a landslide victory for an ultra-right provincial Conservative party unfolded and on the heels of Calgary Opera’s production that saw bass singer Gabriel Sanchez Ortega (ironically playing political prisoner Cesare Angelotti) fired for unfurling a Palestinian flag during his curtain call on opening night (with a group of protestors arriving on closing night).

With political passion afoot, I eagerly awaited the Vancouver Opera production. Sadly, while there were some lovely performances, the direction by Brenna Corner Director of Pacific Opera Victoria, lacked spark and the co-production between the two companies meandered into a kind of languid melancholy that failed to rise to the historical and actual moment. Indeed, with so many contemporary parallels to Rome in 1800 – the setting of Puccini’s 1900 opera (based on a play called “La Tosca” by the French writer Victorien Sardou) when the Kingdom of Naples’s control of Rome was threatened by Napoleon’s invasion of Italy – and when so many Scarpia type villains abound – it seemed a missed opportunity (although historical purists might be pleased.)

Production Details

To be fair, the last production I saw of “Tosca” was Ted Hoffman’s version at Glyndebourne this past June, performed as a right-wing march planned for nearby Brighton was foiled by an antifascist carnival and another “peace deal” hammered out between Iran and America. An impassioned hyper-relevant cry against fascism inspired by Rossellini’s Roma città aperta, it took the Romantic melodrama and set it in Mussolini’s Italy but still made it very much of the moment. The pacing was tight and the staging well-choreographed, holding audience attention throughout and never missing a beat.

While the first Act of the Vancouver Opera’s “Tosca” was promising, and the historically accurate set and costumes (designed by Kevin Knight) were stunning, the last two Acts fell into a kind of dramatic stupor. It was all very pretty, but hardly an urgent anthem to the end of tyranny. Perhaps it was a kinder, gentler Canadian version of “Tosca” – where passion gave way to introspection – but it was not the gentleman I was expecting.

Illuminating Vocal Performances

That said, the First Act had some great moments. Lebanese-Canadian Joyce El-Khoury as Floria Tosca, not only had a thrilling lyric soprano but the dramatic chops to take her character through her journey from peace loving artist to unexpected resistance fighter and champion of freedom. When El-Khoury, (winner of the 2022 “Maria Callas Debut Artist of the Year” for her triumphant Dallas Opera debut as Leïla in Bizet’s “The Pearl Fishers”) arrived on stage in Act One, her presence was palpable. While tenor David Pomeroy as her lover, the revolutionary artist Mario Cavaradossi, took a while to warm up on opening night, their flirtatious exchange about kissing in front of the Madonna worked well.

Gregory Dahl as Scarpia was an excellent villain, with his full-throated baritone revealing both the evil nature of his character as well as some nuance – his twisted take on sexual violence and the thrill of the chase evoking a Trumpian chill – and later almost evoking audience empathy as he pleaded for his life.

The First Act – as did the rest of the opera – benefitted from excellent set and video design by Scott Reid, (who used larger than life shadows to great effect) lighting design by Michael Walton (who bathed the stage in rose at the end) as well as a compelling performance by a local children’s choir. Dahl did not disappoint as he sang “Tosca, you make me forget even God” as he pretended to join the chorus in prayer.

In the Second and Third Acts, however, it felt like Tosca was remembering God a little too much. When she killed Scarpia, El-Khoury’s Tosca came across as a kind of avenging Madonna, rather than the feminist heroine that director Corner claimed she was going for in a local interview calling her a “woman (who) is more powerful than her world lets her be.”

As El-Khoury’s Tosca knelt to pray over the dead body of Scarpia, I wanted her to be angrier and less forgiving. But her gorgeous voice soared over these dramatic difficulties and her earlier “Vissi d’arte” was poignantly performed.

In the same Act the shadow images of Cavaradossi’s torture took a timid step towards making the audience complicit as voyeurs of violence, a possibly very contemporary doom scrolling reference, but never really took it anywhere beyond mere suggestion.

A highlight of Act Three (besides the pristine boy soprano’s Shepherd’s Song that opened it) was Pomeroy’s “E lucevan le stelle.” The memories of the condemned man’s love for Tosca and his joy at being alive were made genuinely moving through his expressive tenor. His subsequent duet with Tosca about their dreams of love and liberty was also lovely-but the pacing got a bit droopy. It could have been sharper.

The tragic climax, when Tosca flings herself to her death crying, “O Scarpia, avanti a Dio” was somehow smothered in sanctimony rather than performed with passion and left me strangely unmoved. For an opera about violence, lust, revolution and idealism, it ended with a whimper rather than a bang.

But the beauty of the music (expertly conducted by Jacques Lacombe), the outstanding vocal performances and the handsome sets and costumes almost made up for it.

And as a new conservative and very possibly arts funding slashing regime is elected in British Columbia, Tosca’s words “I lived for art, I lived for love” take on a whole new meaning.