In the title role, Natalya Romaniw was a complete star. This Tosca was tempestuous and fierce, driven by extremes of passion and envy, vengeance and despair, but Romaniw made such emotions feel so human and real, overcoming the practical obstacles and capturing the audience’s eyes, ears and hearts. During Scarpia’s Act 2 manipulations, I found myself truly drawn into the drama, forgetting the chilly breeze, the boomy sound and the fact that I was essentially watching a film-screen rather than an operatic stage. It was all the more remarkable as Romaniw, bare-shouldered in a beautiful blue gown, must have been frozen! As the wind whipped up off the water, no wonder she hugged her arms tightly around herself during Scarpia’s torturous onslaught. ‘Vissi d’arte’ held the moment entirely: there was not a shuffle or whisper from the captivated audience – and no doubt the birds and beasts in the Park were entranced too.
This was thanks to Puccini’s magic, to the orchestra’s vibrantly committed playing under Richard Farnes’s direction, and to larger-than-life performances by three outstanding singers. Baritone Roland Wood’s Scarpia (with perfect diction) had exactly the right kind of death-dealing menace, and when his duet-duel with soprano Natalya Romaniw’s Tosca reached its bloody denouement, some women in the audience let out an involuntary cheer.
Nézet-Séguin wanted to conduct the piece in French. Now, as the company’s music director, he has made it so. It speaks to his passion for the score that this is the first opera in his still-young Met career for which he is leading a third run, and his conception of it — long-breathed, patient, light-textured — embodies the vast elegance of French grand opera.
