Italy has been suffering from the heat just as much as the UK this month. The only thing making it easier is that, unlike the British, they're used to it and they have all the set-up needed to survive a night when you can leave a performance of Tosca at 1am and your smartphone is still registering 29°C.
It's the dependability of the climate that means they can plan for an outdoor opera season like that of the Puccini Festival at Torre del Lago with its lakeside auditorium that sits right next to the composer's villa. Open-air opera calls for emotions and gestures that are even more outsized than usual, although Maria Todaro’s production moved into melodrama a little too gruesomely when Tosca assaulted Scarpia with no fewer than three murder weapons. However, while bombastic acting was par for the course, from time to time all of the performers seasoned with a few more careful gestures, and Carlo Centolavigna’s ultra-traditional sets provided hugely handsome frames to embrace the action.
It says something about their quality that the three leads transcended any melodramatic tendencies to deliver performances of power and enormous humanity. Of the three, Eleonora Buratto was the one who struggled slightly to fit her voice to the environment. In Act 1 she threw all caution to the wind in a performance scaled up a little too much, as though to reach the far side of the lake rather than the back row of the auditorium, meaning that her flirtation with Cavaradossi lacked believability. However, that meant that when the big moments came they really hit home, and her voice, one of velvety richness, was a thrill to listen to in her confrontation with Scarpia, broadening out into something of luxuriant beauty in “Vissi d’arte”. The audience enjoyed her aria so much that, somewhat outrageously in this day and age, it was encored. Remarkably, it sounded every bit as good second time round.
British tenor Adam Smith has an extraordinarily exciting voice, with all the equipment to sing the role of the ardent revolutionary Cavaradossi. The climax of the love duet, his cries of “Vittoria!”, the urgency of “E lucevan le stelle” all crested with ringing power and total confidence. He might have lacked the nth degree of subtlety – the voice has an almost permanent quality of full-beam-headlights to it – but he's an exciting talent and, in a role like Cavaradossi, it's better to have too much fire than too little.
Ludovic Tézier, on the other hand, knows a thing or two about subtlety. His Scarpia was a silky maneuverer rather than a blunt brute, using the gorgeous warmth of his voice to win over Tosca in Act 1, as well as carefully realised physical acting to show us that he's a well-bred gentleman as well as the Chief of Police. The dark snarl of malice was there at the opening of Act 2 but, if you listened to it with the right ears, large parts of his long confrontation with Tosca could have passed for a love duet.
Minor characters were well observed too, particularly Orlando Polidoro’s sly Spoletta and Claudio Ottino’s gently humorous Sacristan, though Luciano Leoni’s overacting meant it was a relief when Angelotti exited stage right.
Carlo Montanaro conducted everything with propulsion and grandeur and, aside from a few early lapses of ensemble, the orchestra played with gutsy energy while broadening out beautifully for the expansive climaxes. A really satisfying Tosca, then, that neither the chirruping crickets, the occasional squawking of the lakeside birds, nor even the sweltering heat could stifle.
