An opera as popular as ‘rough’ is applauded when the curtain falls because the public identifies with the drama and is enchanted by the masterful score of puccini. That is why it is a novelty to send her off with some boos: This is what happened on his return to the high schoolwho went up for the 192nd time on the stage of La Rambla in a vision as renewed as controversial. It is already known, the lyrical genre requires prior preparation to enjoy the show and to reflect on the proposal, and the usual updates that try to bring works conceived a couple of centuries ago closer to the public today prevent the genre from becoming a a museum piece.
But the twist doesn’t always work. This happens with the new ‘Tosca’ high school student in the vision of the Sevillian director Rafael R. Villalobos, in which Puccini’s characters share the stage with a group of relatives who weave a parallel subtext that does not quite fit. The ‘regista’ introduces the writer and film director Pier Paolo Pasolini already part of his imaginary in a game of mirrors that correlates the political persecution suffered in fiction by the painter Cavaradossi – Tosca’s lover – and that endured by the Italian artist assassinated in 1975, from whom flashes of his life are inserted. There are references to his childhood, to his relationship with Maria Callasto his latest film –’Salo or the 120 days of Sodom’– and to his last and fatal fling, details intelligible only to those who went to the theater with their homework done.
The hodgepodge was indigestible for some, as was made clear at the beginning of the second act, when part of the audience protested a scene by Pasolini and his murderer that provoked a refusal that had not been seen at the Liceu since Calixto Bieito’s ‘Ballo in maschera’ (2000). Even so, in the production the impressive paintings by Santiago Ydáñez stand out, the as schematic as utilitarian set design by Emmanuele Sinisi (despite being acoustically complicated) and a thousand performance details overshadowed by the fixation with Pasolini.
bonding couple
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The reading by Henrik Nánási featured una Simfònica lyceista agile and generous sound, while the choir, always internal, made a mistake in its entries. The maestro’s work with the soloists was adequate, although he drowned out Tosca at key moments in the second act. the main couple, Italian soprano Maria Agresta and American tenor Michael Fabiano, they had already coincided in this title at the Teatro Real in Madrid in July 2021, and both were seen to be at one with each other and with good chemistry; In any case, she was always in a hurry, as if trying to accentuate her passion with her discreet projection, with certain piped basses and finishing off her aria with obvious problems. A concentrated, expressive and comfortable Fabiano took advantage of her solar timbre (reminiscent of Carreras) with dreamy phrasing.
The Scarpia of Željko LučićOn the other hand, he did not terrify the environment with his song of an older man, gray, out of tune at times and not at all elegant. Among the comprimarios, the sobrado Sciarrone by Manel Esteve and the timbrado Sacristán by Jonathan Lemalu stood out.