Review: TOSCA al Festspielhaus di Baden-Baden diretta da Simon Rattle alla guide dei Berlin Philharmonic.
By Natalia DiBartolo © DiBartolocritic
One of the characteristics that distinguish large orchestras is flexibility. Therefore, when the Work is performed by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, stop the world.
The marvel of such an orchestra is also the fluidity of execution, the docility of response to the conducting gesture, the ability to listen to and support the singers even beyond the director himself. Hence the experiment Tosca accomplished by M° Sir Simon Rattle, for the Easter festival 2017 al Festspielhaus in Baden-Baden, from an orchestral point of view it succeeded. The conductor and chief conductor of the Berliners held the orchestra in his grip and let himself be held in the orchestra's grip. A reciprocity which, like the flexibility mentioned above, is typical only of large orchestral ensembles.
With sound material of this kind in the pit, "his" Berliner, Maestro Rattle gave life to a Puccini evening, on April 17, 2017, with a masterpiece whose melodic and harmonic rendering was commendable. Despite some delays in the tempos in the Te Deum in the first act, some moments that would have needed less lyricism and a more nervous tightening of the tempos, the direction of Master Rattle she was beyond reproach. Great colors scattered in profusion, with masterfully underlined dynamics. Even the support for the singers has been taken care of to the extreme: singing with the Berliner is no small thing. The performers knew it well, appearing at times even intimidated, but the Maestro knew it very well above all, who contained the flood from the mystical gulf, unleashing virtuosity in only orchestral moments.
Intimidated, in particular, he seemed Marco Vratogna, one Scarpia which would have needed more ease in the acute area and less thrust in the strong ones. All in all correct, but he was also displaced and left to himself by the direction. But he will talk about it…
Having started backwards with the main performers, we move on to Cavaradossi by Marcelo Onlvarez, who seemed absolutely convinced that he was a respectable male protagonist, mainly committed to showing off his skills as a heroic tenor. In spite of his efforts, the phrasing was very inelegant, the legato at times non-existent…in short, bel canto was set aside in favor of spelling out musical phrases and even single words. In E lucevan le stelle, the tenor forced the T's and doubled them: listening to a "Che non ho ama-TTO mai TTAn-TTO la vi-TTA" to give the ending of the words the prominence he deemed necessary, for example, produced just an absolute lack of elegance and confirmed the absence of style of a voice which, if correctly emitted and expressed, could be remarkable. The lack of elegance, then, was no less, unfortunately, not even in the interpretation. The direction didn't help him at all…
E, sweet in the bottom, la Tosca by Kristine Opolais, who was all a "crackling" in the movements, but vocally, fortunately, she was the best on stage: at least she had all the voice. Even too much, in truth, when, as it has done, you take a B natural instead of a B flat in Vissi d'arte, in the high note on "Signor", that is, you go up in tone, perhaps with good reason, to avoid the dreaded decline. And then, why an out of place breath that broke one of the large and splendid sentences, also in Vissi d'arte? A real pity, because Opolais has a lot of breath. On the other hand, not much expressiveness, despite the proof of scenic skill of a failed Hollywood actress. Her Tosca lacked dramatic tension, she was over-acted, in a context that, for the rest, was really out of place and out of place in every sense.
Bypassing the correct while Angelotti by Alexander Tsymbalyuk, constantly handcuffed with his hands behind his back (how did he manage to empty Mario's basket of food to eat?); not ignoring the underlying pedophile tendencies imposed by the director al sexton, Peter Rose, against a little boy who was then "used" without any logical connection as a soloist for the shepherd's song in Roman dialect in the third act; the mediocre supporting actors with serious problems of Italian diction (and not only) and the Philharmonia Choir Vienna, while pleasant and well educated by Walter Zeh, one could only see on the faces of the spectators a disconsolate perplexity towards the new production of Philip Himmelman.
The writer cannot ignore an interview with another of the most ambitious directors on the German scene, who almost justified himself with contrition for not having been able to transpose over time a work that absolutely needed the historical setting in which it had been created. We arrive today at such paradoxes! Well, that opera was not Tosca…but also for Tosca Himmelmann should have made the same reasoning as that director, who for once left everything in its place in its own time.
And here we resume the discussion mentioned above regarding the main performers, moved like pawns on an immense, half-empty and squalid stage. Too many science fiction films in the visual baggage of this director, in the icy and unpleasant scenes and in the impersonal costumes. Support for interpreters was also distorted and often left to their own devices. Result of absolute approximation to the approach with a masterpiece.
Scarpia was the head of a sort of evil fraternity a la Matrix, uniformed in appearance with his henchmen, a chorus included in the Te Deum. But why, if the setting, the time, the unfolding of the story and all the rest are brought from the booklet on a silver platter? The libretto also bears the date: it is set in Rome in June 1800, in the church of S. Andrea della Valle in the first act, in Palazzo Farnese in Scarpia's room on the upper floor in the second and on the platform of Castel Sant'Angelo in the third , whatever people say, whatever you think, even wanting to ignore the original prose drama of Sardou.
The face of Maddalena-Attavanti in the first act was printed on a maxi-screen…but not only that: his portrait was painted on the floor of S. Andrea della Valle. Absurd finding in every sense, not only because very few spectators were able to see it, as the critic of an American newspaper pointed out with a small practical sense, but above all because it is unthinkable that inside any church, even at any time, a painter paint on the floor, as if he had been a madonnaro. And no offense to these artists, who are sometimes better than painters much more famous than them.
Then that underlying overall tendency of directing towards voyeurism, all those screens and those shots, a déjà vu from the 1990s Venice Biennale. A little find’ aged, if nothing else, as a pavilion of the Venetian exhibition which perhaps at the time could arouse some "ohhh" of wonder. The media in Tosca? To what? Here the defeat of Melas at Marengo was announced and its veracity was verified on the computer!
Shooting then? Obsolete. And yet Scarpia says: "Let the prisoner be shot!" Instead here Cavaradossi dies with a blow to the head from a slaughter pistol, which Tosca herself then uses for suicide. No comment, except that Illica and Giacosa, together with Sardou, will have turned in their graves.
The dismay on the faces of the spectators was evident, as mentioned earlier. Applause above all for the musical part, therefore, which proved to be the strong point of the evening; and some dissent. Waiting for this production to make the rounds of the big theaters…
Natalia DiBartolo © DiBartolocritic
PHOTOS © Festspielhaus Baden-Baden | Monica Rittershaus