I can't believe my good luck. Neither me nor the madrileños who are living a historical week at the Teatro Real, in a run of performances of Puccini's Tosca, featuring some of the best singers available for this masterpiece, among them there are the most feted divos today, hailed in most major opera houses worldwide, and symbols of an operatic generation, ours: Jonas Kaufmann and Anna Netrebko. Their visit to Teatro Real is really exceptional, since usually the madrileño aficionados have to travel abroad or to watch them on live cinema streamings to see their great performances. However, they don't sing together, but each one in different casts.
When thinking of a primadonna, a diva, in the current active operatic stage, Anna Netrebko comes to mind. She is the most wanted soprano in every operatic venue. An artist with personality, temperament, and style. Through a 27-year career, she has sung a wide range of roles an repertoires, starting with Russian operas under the Mariinsky Theatre, then singing heroines like Lucia, Elvira and the famous Traviata in Salzburg which launched her to stardom, and even made her a sex-symbol-like due to her beauty. Today she sings more dramatic, spinto roles, from which Tosca is one of her signature roles.
Like, Kaufmann, Netrebko made her debut at the Teatro Real two decades ago, more specifically in 2001, in Prokofiev's War and Peace with the Mariinsky company under Gergiev. She wouldn't return to Madrid until 2019, in a concert with her husband Yusif Eyvazov, who is also accompaigning her in this Tosca. Alongside them, Luca Salsi sings Scarpia, in this fourth and last cast of this wonderful performances. Thanks to a friend who invited me, I could see this cast in the last performance on July 24.
Netrebko has given an unforgettable, fantastic performance. Like Tosca, she is a Primadonna and shows it whenever she can. She makes clear that she is the protagonist. There's been a long time since her legendary Traviata in Salzburg, and the wide repertoire she has sung, with different grades of success, has dented in her voice, now in a mature stage of her career. Her tone is still recognisable from her days as a lyric coloratura soprano, now darker and thicker, and with the same big volume, making her listenable throughout the hall. Higher register sound a bit worn, but still impressive and beautiful. And diction, legato, are still there. Low register is dark, contralto-like, with a tragic accent. In addition, she is a good actress: her gestures, expressions, bring to light her great charisma and authority on stage. Some taste of the old divas could be seen: the staging shows Tosca with a great determination but also as a sensible, fragile woman, but Netrebko's Tosca is a good woman, but authoritative, strong-tempered, energical, inspiring too much respect. Maybe because she incorprated late the production, and only for two performances, she went independently from the staging action.
At her entry in the love duet of Act One, the audience, like the Met's one, started to clap when Netrebko appeared on stage. She showed an obvious chemistry with Eyvazov, as he is his partner in real life. Moving in her final line "Egli vede ch'io piango". The best, however, was yet to come. In Act 2 she will show all her vocal powers with her amazing high notes during the torture scene, in very deep-sounding lines like "Non so Nulla" with a beautiful low voice, as well at the end of the scene. The Vissi d'arte was, of course, the climatic moment. She sang it beautifully, with a velvet-like middle voice, and outstanding high notes, apart from a beautiful legato and apianato singing in the famous final line "perché me ne rimuneri così", which unlike Radvanovsky, it could be heard over the powerful orchestra. A devoted, moving rendition, which, unlike her fellow coleagues in the other casts who sang it lying down the floor, she stood in the center of stage while singing. And unlike Sondra, she didn't encore despite the petition of the ovationing audience. At a first sight she moved the head down, what could have been understood as relenting (in my opinion it was a thankful reverence) but after receiving more applause, she shaked her head, refusing and the music continued, not before someone from the audience screamed "How great you are!". During the murder of Scarpia she was really astonishing on stage, and electrifying when she pronounced gravely, rounded, the line "È morto, or gli perdono".
In Act 3 she maintained the level, even surpassing in volume and voice her husband in the final duet Trionfal di nuova speme. The final scene in Com'è lunga l'attesa was really in the line of a great tragedienne, conveying the dramatic tension, and with a diction and volume better than her colleagues. She closed her performance with a glorious final high note in the famous concluding line "O Scarpia, avanti a dio", and run to jump into the abyss very tragically.
Eyvazov has sung a Cavaradossi better than expected, devoted, despite his limitations. Even when departing from an acceptable vocal material, a youthful middle-register, the problem is his strident tone, which strangles the high notes when they go upper., resulting in a performance with ups and downs. In this way, and after a just correct Recondita Armonia, higher moments like "La vita mi costasse" or "Vittoria, Vittoria" had some trouble, despite his enormous volume, which would swallow Kaufmann. However, in Act 3 he convinced and won the audience approval. His tone limitations started to fit into Cavaradossi's desperation, using his interesting middle voice, sounding really good in "Io lascio al mondo una persona cara". As most tenors, since this is the most known aria for them in the show, he reserved for E Lucevan le Stelle, which he sang surprisingly good, in a heartbreaking performance, conveying the anguish of the character, and like his fellow tenor colleagues in the other casts, he sung in a beautiful piano voice from "O dolci baci", linking notes very accomplishedly from his nice piano register. He received a warm applause from the audience, but he didn't encore. During the rest of the act he maintained this good level, though with ups and downs again, and repeated his skilled pianissimo in "O dolci mani, mansuete e pure". His big effort was rewarded with an ovation from the audience, which he welcomed with sympathy.
Salsi is the other star of the cast, and by far the best Scarpia of the three ones in this production. Having an imposing presence, and also a big chemistry with Netrebko as they sang this opera at La Scala, his rendition of the villainous police chief astonishes by his vocal power and his great acting. He can mix successfully the brutality of the character with refinement, conveying even better its evil, remembering (of course considering the big distance) classic performances like Tito Gobbi's. His is a big volumed, a robust, villainesque-toned voice. His first appearance with the terrible line "Un tal baccano in chiesa" was really scary, and very impressive in the Te Deum. In Act 2, he reached his peak thanks to a dark, sounding tone, alternating with a piano singing when flirting with Tosca. From "Ne voglio altra mercede" until Scarpia's murder his singing was splendid, even menacing, a remarkable performance. Even in the death scene, he tries to fight violently with Tosca until the last breath: Scarpia in all his pure evil. Salsi was ovationed, fairly, at the end of the performance.
Luisotti conducted the orchestra in the same good level, inspired as never before in this work. In this occasion, he seemed to care the singers sometimes, like in the Kaufmann performances, by diminishing the orchestral volume, but he still maintained the powerful level. Brass section seemed more inspired this day, and clarinet played a beautiful pianissimo sound in E Lucevan le stelle. The strings, beautiful as usual.
The rest of the cast, chorus as well as the staging is explained in detail in my review on the second cast.
And now, with the last peformance of this glorious performances, the 2020-2021 season of the Teatro Real has reached its conclusion. Myself and many people in the audience has fulfilled a dream: to see the big stars Netrebko and Kaufmann in staged performances, as a long time has transcurred from their early 2000s performances, and many madrileño spectators had to conform with CDs, DVDs or occasional recitals only in recent times. Probably a very long time will happen before we will enjoy of such a vocal feast. After the party, the hangover is coming. We hope this will fizzle out in the promising next season.
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