Some thrills and a bit of a chill in Lise Davidsen's Tosca at the Met

The Metropolitan Opera is presenting 13 performances of Puccini's Tosca this season, broken into chunks of five, four and four, with breaks in between and each with a different and strong cast. I don't think it's untoward to say that most eyes and ears were glued to the central four (ending on 23rd November), which featured debutant Freddie De Tommaso as Cavaradossi, Met favorite Quinn Kelsey as Scarpia and new superstar Lise Davidsen in the title role.

Yannick Nézet-Séguin was in the pit and the ferocious opening chords set the tone for the entire evening. He continued with this thoroughly veristic approach, which is just right for this brutal work, save for the first act Cavaradossi-Tosca duet and the lovely introduction to the last act. Otherwise, tensions ran high.

Sir David McVicar’s 2017 production is standing up well. He gives us a familiar Rome: the church is grand, Scarpia’s palatial room features murals of The Rape of the Sabine Women – a warning if ever there was one – the roof of the Castel Sant’Angelo dominates Act 3. The decision to rake the stage sideways in the final act makes little sense either physically or dramatically (the prompter’s box had to be raised), and the church is somewhat off-kilter. Familiar, but skewed.

Quinn Kelsey is the “Italian” baritone we’ve been looking for, with a big, resonant sound and a wonderful, dramatic snarl that never stretches or distorts the vocal line. His Scarpia radiates cruelty; his “Tosca, you make me forget God” at the close of the Te Deum, perfectly audible above the chorus, was filled with horror and rage. He stalked Tosca like a tiger.

De Tommaso’s debut was a mixed bag. A true asset all over Europe, he has a really fine, good sized tenor voice, secure throughout. But perhaps it was the size of the house that made him oversing – he was relentlessly loud and too many phrases went sharp. His acting was somewhat rudimentary, unhelped by McVicar’s blocking and being several inches shorter than his Tosca proved to be awkward.

If ever there was an opera that called for melodramatic acting, it is this one. Jealous, loving, angry, nervous, religious, desperate and vengeful are only a few of the emotions that Tosca goes through. Dare I say that  Davidsen seemed almost too dignified to embody most of these feelings? As a tall woman, over six feet, she was rather the soul of marmoreal nobility, not coy or loving enough in the first act and not quite desperate and crazy enough in the second. Last season, in La forza del destino, she was almost ideal as the constantly unhappy, constantly troubled aristocratic Leonora. Tosca's emotions are much closer to the surface and much wilder, and Davidsen keeps her distance from them.

But oh Lord, the voice! Not since Birgit Nilsson and Joan Sutherland, both of whom I heard often at the Met, have I heard such volume and such opulence. She doesn't use chest voice, but the bottom octave is strong enough to always be audible. But it is the top of the voice that shines with amazing brilliance. The top four notes, from A to C, take on a stainless-steel-like sheen and the security of her emission is something to behold. Since last season, she has learned to temper her sound to a quite lovely pianissimo when needed. At only 37 years of age, one might say that she is still a great-soprano-in-progress. One might also say that Italian opera is not where she feels most at home. The audience reacted to her remarkable sound with repeated ovations. One can hardly wait to hear her Brünnhilde, her Senta, Isolde and, terrifyingly, her Elektra. Her Fidelio later in the season should fit her like a glove.

Newly appointed chorus director Tilman Michael proved himself more than a worthy successor to Donald Palumbo; and the Met Orchestra, horns and all, had a great evening.