What a great fuss was made over the fact that the difficult Romanian diva Angela Gheorghiu was coming to the Royal Opera House to sing Tosca in a brand new production. And what a disappointment she turned out to be. I wasn't too surprised. I have seen her perform live in the past, not to my satisfaction. I didn't expect her Tosca to be wonderful, took no steps to see it, and was comforted by the near unanimity, among newspaper critics and opera-goers alike, that she wasn't quite up to it. The pre-opening hype that Gheorghiu was somehow about to inherit Maria Callas's mantle of Tosca greatness was shown to be absurd within a few notes of her opening her lungs.
But I'm fond of the Puccini opera, and last week went to the same, superb production - with not a Gheorghiu in sight. Instead, there was a "second cast", insultingly known in the trade as the B-cast, with Tosca sung by an American, Catherine Nagelstad, of whom I had not previously heard. She was terrific in every way.
I overheard a chap who had seen Gheorghiu the week before tell his companion that Nagelstad had been far better. But I did not read any reviews of her outstanding performance in the papers. There weren't any. The Romanian had captured not only all the anticipatory publicity, but all the review space as well. She sang in only five of the 12 performances, but received near enough 100% of the attention. Even had she delivered satisfaction - which she didn't - it would have been unfair.
My question is: how does the public get to know that Nagelstad is good? Obviously, the insiders are aware of her, or she would not have been asked to sing Tosca at all; and her CV shows that she has performed in many opera houses all over the world. That's not the point. The British opera-loving public, other than those who happened to be present at Covent Garden, most of them disappointed (at least initially) because they weren't quick enough to get tickets for Gheorghiu, is ignorant of her.
The basic difficulty is that newspaper critics these days rarely cover second casts. I'm not criticising them. It's not their fault. It used to be different, I'm told. Philip Hope-Wallace, for instance, one of the foremost opera critics of the 60s, always did so - and the Guardian always gave him the space. And it is space that is at the heart of the problem today. Few arts editors of newspapers would countenance two reviews of the same opera within a couple of weeks. As it is, many worthy opera and concert performances (which tend to fight for the same space) don't get reviewed at all. The move to tabloid-size papers has exacerbated the shortage of space for critics.
At the same time, critics are faced with a choice of more productions than ever before. How can they justify writing about the same one twice? Some try, but rarely succeed. I don't have an answer, but I do know that Catherine Nagelstad deserves better. So does the public.
