Nobody has ever been in any doubt about the brutality in Puccini’s Tosca. It’s there in the bestiality of the police chief Scarpia and it’s forcefully there in the music from the opening three thunderous chords on. Ted Huffman in his new production for Glyndebourne, with sets by Nadja Sofie Eller, costumes by Astrid Klein and lighting by D M Wood – astonishingly the first ever at the house – adds a few shocking twists of the knife.
Relocating the action to the wartime Fascist period, it begins and ends with a horrific execution. But it’s in the second act, when Scarpia demands Tosca’s body as the price of releasing her lover Cavaradossi to her alive, that Huffman offers his most original slant on the story. Instead of Scarpia’s ultimatum being delivered à deux, it takes place in a restaurant where sympathisers of the regime, including women (and at least one mistress), are witnesses. They collude with Scarpia’s womanising, laughing at his behaviour: he’s quite the ladies’ man – though even they turn their backs at the sight of the mutilated, tortured Cavaradossi. And is the burger on Scarpia’s table, covered in blood-like ketchup, a sly reference to a more recent autocrat, perhaps?
There are other thoughtful details too. Instead of surrounding Scarpia’s dead body with candles and crucifix, this resourceful heroine drags it into another room and wipes the floor clean of blood, to give herself more time to make her getaway.
The American soprano Caitlin Gotimer, making her Glyndebourne debut, elicits our sympathy with a characterisation that’s heartfelt in its vulnerability yet commanding in its vocalism, not least in a superb Vissi d’arte. She’s matched by Matteo Lippi who brings an authentic Italianate passion to the role of Cavaradossi. At the climaxes his tone is thrilling, yet he can fine it down for expressive nuance.
Vladislav Sulimsky shows he is capable of more than just bluster too: his subtle Scarpia is all the more lethal for its sense of hidden menace. Michael Ronan cuts an impressive figure as his henchman Sciarrone and Federico De Michelis is a suitably sanctimonious Sacristan.
Robin Ticciati’s conducting is an essential element in the potency of this production, drawing from the London Philharmonic Orchestra playing of exceptional power and eloquence – the iron fist in a velvet glove that so perfectly captures the quality of Puccini’s fiercely beautiful score.
To 30 August
