[Met Performance] CID:266480



Tosca
Metropolitan Opera House, Sat, October 31, 1981

Debut : Charles Coleman




Tosca (660)
Giacomo Puccini | Luigi Illica/Giuseppe Giacosa
Tosca
Teresa Zylis-Gara

Cavaradossi
Giuseppe Giacomini

Scarpia
Louis Quilico

Sacristan
Renato Capecchi

Spoletta
Andrea Velis

Angelotti
James Courtney

Sciarrone
Russell Christopher

Shepherd
Charles Coleman [Debut]

Jailer
Richard Vernon


Conductor
Giuseppe Patan?


Director
Tito Gobbi

Designer
Rudolf Heinrich

Lighting Designer
Gil Wechsler

Stage Director
David Kneuss





Tosca received nine performances this season.

Review 1:

Edward Rothstein in The New York Times
Met Opera: First ?Tosca?

Grand flourishes are needed to give the stabbing, shooting, suicide, desire, deceit, oppression, torture and sacraments of "Tosca" any sort of dramatic power. In the first performance this season at the Metropolitan Opera on Saturday night, several of the principals had a certain restrained flair for such matters, but it was not sufficient.


Giuseppe Patane's conducting of the Puccini score was, in fact, the primary source of vigor in the stage action. His shaping of the brass during the second act gave Tosca 's confrontation with Scarpia its dramatic weight; his coloration of the orchestral shimmers gave a punctuated chill to her adorning of Scarpia's corpse with candles.


Giuseppe Giacomini, who has previously sung Cavaradossi with much success, also used musical lines to emphasize dramatic action, sometimes pushing his firm tenor to the limit in its upper register to stress his deep feelings though his love for Tosca emerged as earnest rather than passionate or warm, this Cavaradossi was not to be underestimated.


In other roles, the drama was harder come by. Scarpia, stolidly given voice by Louis Quilico, was backed by a physical presence but lacked the vocal nuances of coy threat and driving appetite that would make him such a formidable foil for Tosca.


As for Tosca herself, as sung by Teresa Zylis-Gara, she seemed a cipher. Miss Zylis-Gara sang out a well- shaped phrase now and then, and even gave a sensitive sound to "Vissi d'arte," but the voice did not belong to a character whose jealousy, anger and love are of sufficient power to wrestle with decrees of fate and state.


James Courtney was more comfortable vocally than dramatically as Angelotti and Renato Capecchi was a slightly buffoonish Sacristan. Andrea Wells, Russell Christopher, Charlie Coleman and Richard Vernon filled out the cast.



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