A Tosca true to Puccini (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

A Tosca true to Puccini

FEBRUARY 12 - 14, BRISTOL: DRAMATIC and telling as the singing was, it was, strangely, the silences that added the touches of poignancy that put this production into the league of the memorable.

It is a production true to Puccini's intention. There is no pandering to any ill-conceived ideas of modernity. The sets, high wide and mighty, add much.

The Chisinau National Opera has a wealth of eastern European sonorous baritone; its orchestra a dramatic brass section and explosive percussion and in conductor Nicolae Dohotaru a musician who is not frightened to hold back the tempi giving space and depth to the score.

Akhmed Agadi as the artist Cavaradossi has a tenor voice that embraced the pathos of those hauntingly wonderful falling cadences.

His reading of the moment and his timing were impeccable. The melodic relationship twixt him and baritone Sacristan Valeriu Cojocaru was satisfyingly balanced in fact, a rather superior musical balance than he achieved with Tosca (Natalia Margarit).

She seemed slow to start, lacking projection at times and suffered from a weak lower register. But in the trial scene with the sadistically arrogant Spoletta (Anatol Arcea) she laid bare the frayed edges of life and death with a rawness that hit home hard.

And, finally, Tosca's leap to her death. Not a pop over the wall but a full 20-odd feet leap from the castle ramparts. I wonder how many of the half-full house spotted the switch with the stunt man. I didn't.

Reg Burnard

Tosca

Ellen Kent Opera International

Bristol Hippodrome