Dallas Opera's 'Tosca' 'exemplary'
By Chris Shull
Special to the Star-Telegram
DALLAS -- Opera these days is equally about music and stagecraft. Audiences demand that performers sing with beauty and majesty, but also expect realistic acting.
The Dallas Opera found an exemplary balance between these elements in Puccini's Tosca Friday night at Music Hall at Fair Park. The production is the last of Dallas Opera's current season; repeat performances run Sunday afternoon and on Wednesday and Saturday evenings.
The realistic sets and costumes for Tosca were made by Dallas Opera; they have been used in previous presentations of the opera. They are not worn, just familiar. What made Friday's performance fresh and viscerally exciting was provocative acting by the principal singers – and potent and poignant vocalism.
The famous scene in Tosca is in the second act, when the singer Floria Tosca agrees to sleep with the police chief Baron Scarpia in order to save the life of her lover, the painter Cavaradossi. But instead of giving up a kiss, she plunges a knife into his heart. On Friday, Catherine Naglestad and Wolfgang Brendel played this scene with the violent pacing of the movie thriller.
In the midst of the escalating intensity, Tosca sings the aria Vissi d'arte – and in a lovely, plaintive tone, Naglestad made time stand still in the theater.
Throughout the opera her acting was in synch with the inflections and color of her well-formed soprano. Her body language and her voice combined for flirtatious coos, passionate outpourings and desperate pleas for her lover's freedom. When Tosca finally scrambled from Scarpia's clutches, safe-conduct papers in hand, the audience felt her shivers - her relief and remorse - accompanied by stark orchestra chords.
Brendel's voice was a bit one-dimensional in its upper tones, but the assurance of his characterization of Scarpia made up for that. The realism of the political intrigue that is the backdrop to Tosca was helped along nicely by David Cangelosi's Spoletta, who served as both efficient functionary and fall guy among Scarpia's police agents. Michael Gallup brought broad comic gestures to his Sacristan.
Stage director Giulio Chazalettes made the most of his cast of singing actors, placing them sensibly for dramatic effect and effective singing.
The third wonderful singer on stage in Dallas' Tosca was Massimo Giordano as Cavaradossi. He brought a buoyant, brilliant Italianate sound to his two set-piece arias, lingering lusciously over the phrases in E lucevan le stele in the last act. As Naglestad and Brendel brought a fierce revulsion to their encounters, she and Giordano brought a joyful tenderness to theirs.
Overseeing the drama from the pit was conductor Anthony Barrese, making his main-stage debut with Dallas Opera. He conducted student performances for the company last season. On Friday it took the orchestra until the third act to really warm to him. Until then the musical accompaniment often sounded dry, and phrases ran out of steam.
But that barely detracted from what was building on stage, a Tosca worth experiencing for its wonderful singing and powerful story-telling.
Who: Dallas Opera
What: Puccini's Tosca
Where: Fair Park Music Hall
When: Friday, repeat performances Sunday afternoon, Wednesday, Saturday
Chris Shull, shullchris@yahoo.com
PHOTO INFORMATION:
Catherine Naglestad, left, and Wolfgang Brendal star in the Dallas Opera production of Tosca at Fair Park Music Hall.
Special to the Star-Telegram/Mike Fuente
