The Toledo Opera will open its 2024-2025 season with Tosca, an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, Friday.
The opera debuted 124 years ago, but the old warhorse — the opera, not Floria Tosca — never seems to age.
Maybe it’s because of the plot. Maybe it's because of Puccini’s drama-heavy score. Maybe it’s because companies like the TOA and directors such as Jeffrey Buchman, conductors like Geoffrey McDonald, singers like Brendan Boyle, Lindsey Anderson, Corey Crider, and other talented cast mates and chorus, keep the work one of the world’s most popular.
Maybe it’s all of the above. At any rate, TOA’s production strikes all the right notes, keeping the production set in Napoleonic days, using the traditional sets, and imbuing the chief of police, Baron Scarpia, with the perfect amount of sleaze.
Some have said that perhaps the title of the opera should be Scarpia, as he’s the protagonist. Very few works, if any, are titled after the villain. After all, would Star Wars be Star Wars if it were titled Darth Vader?
And Crider’s Scarpia has it all. He returns to Toledo after an impressive Alfio, the cuckolded husband in Cavalleria Rusticana, which the opera put on in 2022. And as suspected and expected, Crider oozed menace and sleaze as the powerful official who lusts after Floria Tosca, a diva in character and profession, who is in love with the painter and Cavaliere Mario Cavaradossi.
Crider was appropriately cringe-worthy, commanding the stage with his both subtle and overt characterization. One moment he’s caressing a statue of the Madonna as he dreams of taking Tosca, then he’s picking on his frightened henchman, Spoletta, portrayed by resident artist Brady DelVecchio, or kneeling before the holy father. But all that would be nothing without Crider’s powerful baritone, and his artistic use of an impressive black cape. After all, not all people who wear capes are superheroes.
Perhaps, though, the most powerful part of the opera is the end of first act, when both the chorus and Scarpia perform the “Te Deum;” the chorus giving thanks to God as Scarpia is dreaming about how he’ll conquer Tosca are chill-inducing in its contrasts and power, especially if Scarpia’s voice and presence are powerful and powerfully odious, and the chorus knows what it’s doing.
In other words, the chills came.
There have been great and greatly evil Scarpias throughout Tosca’s 124 years, and Crider deserves to be among them.
As for the tenor hero, Brendan Boyle had a test to pass. The former TOA resident impressed in last season’s Ragtime as Father and his rendition of Turandot’s “Nessun Dorma” in 2022’s season-ending Celebrazione del Coro. I was confident that he would make a fine Cavaradossi.
And I wasn’t disappointed: His “Recondita Armonia” and especially his last act’s “E lucevan stelle,” as the hero reflects on his love, as his life is about to end, hit all the right marks. His star, as in the aforementioned aria, shines brightly and will get brighter still.
But the real test for a Cavaradossi consists of four syllables, eight as repeated. “Vittoria, Vittoria” in Act 2 is a tenor’s chance to shine, and Boyle not only passed the test, he surpassed it with his strong and rich tenor voice. His stage presence is heroic, and his acting in Act 3, as he and Tosca plan for a life that will never come, was outstanding.
Also impressive was his death. He didn’t fall on his back but on his side, making it all the more poignant when Tosca, who believes the execution was a mock one, finds out it wasn’t. The choice by director Buchman made Tosca all the more horrified to discover that she had been duped by Scarpia.
It is Tosca who has the most work, she does, after all, get to be the title. Mezzo-soprano Lindsey Anderson said that her Tosca goes through a roller coaster of emotions, and she handles the ride well.
In the first act she goes through both joy as she revels in her love for Cavaradossi and tortured jealousy fueled by Scarpia as he tries to arrest Cavaradossi and get Tosca into his bed.
But it is in Act 2 that the ride of emotions goes through many twists and falls as Scarpia makes his illicit deal with the singer. Anderson makes her tortuous decision fully apparent in the famous “Vissi d’Arte” aria. Her meaty yet supple voice plus her acting matched in the final moments of Act 2 when Tosca shows Scarpia just how deadly her kiss can be — “Questo e il bacio di Tosca” — and her final line in the act “Avanti lui tremava tutta Roma,” my two favorite lines in opera.
Even the sets and costumes played their roles to the T; Scarpia’s white and black suit — and his cape — added menace to his character, and Tosca’s rich dress in Act 2 was a great contrast to her vulnerability. Cavaradossi looked the fine gentleman in Act 1 but his degradation was complete by Act 3.
The sets, except in Act 2, were spare. But Scarpia’s apartment was sumptuous by not overly so.
if you haven’t experienced Tosca, you should experience it through the artistry of this Toledo Opera production
And even if you’ve seen Tosca time and again, you haven’t seen this one. It’s worth the time and money to get over to the Valentine Theatre, 410 Adams St.
Tosca will continue at 2 p.m. Sunday, after its first performance at 7:30 p.m. Friday. Tickets start as low as $39. Visit toledoopera.com or call 419-255-7464.
First Published October 18, 2024, 11:22 a.m.
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