Tosca at Birgit Nilsson Days: El-Khoury and Fabiano battle the elements (and win)

Tosca was a signature role for Birgit Nilsson – the one she sang more often than any other, at least on the stage of the Royal Opera in Stockholm – and so it was fitting that Puccini’s tragedy should form the climax of the Birgit Nilsson Days, held in her home town of Västa Karup in southern Sweden. This is Nilsson country: local hero(ine) does not begin to describe the affection still felt for the soprano in the region where she grew up as a farmer’s daughter. A statue just off the town square, a museum now run by her cousin’s daughter, Gitte Lindström Harmark, and an annual week-long series of events all signify the pride and gratitude felt by the inhabitants of the Bjäre peninsula.

Accordingly, they turned up in droves for this concert Tosca to be staged in a field next to the museum, undeterred by the forecast of poor weather and greeted by the sight of Lindström Harmark mopping the stage five minutes before curtain up. That the house (the field, anyway) stayed full to the end pays its own tribute – to the local appetite for opera, to the excellence of the performance, and probably only a little to the fact that many of the audience arrived in coaches.

This was not the place for analytical appraisal, compromised in any case by the patter of steady rain, an amplification system at full tilt and a raincoat hood. Your correspondent discovered all too soon that his waterproof coat did not serve its purpose. What could be discerned all the same was that the principals had arrived in fine voice, and with the determination to give a proper account of the piece rather than showboating their way through a “festival” performance.

A few telling props set the scene for this concert staging directed by Anelia Kadieva Jonsson: crucifix, candles, lunch basket.. Anton Ljungqvist impressed from the outset as an impetuous if implausibly Scandinavian Angelotti, while Fredrik Zetterström made an effective contrast as a sententious Sacristan. Later on, Kjetil Støa and Anders Lorentzson gave wickedly characterful portrayals of Spoletta and Sciarrone. The treble August Follin capered around Zetterström as a solitary choirboy, and then delivered the brief Shepherd Boy’s song with affecting simplicity.

Any world-class opera company would welcome Michael Fabiano’s Cavaradossi with open arms – and they do, from London to Vienna to New York – and he gave everything to the role and to the audience, from the unfettered ardency of his “Recondita armonia” to a frisson of spine-tingling vulnerability in “E lucevan le stelle”. No less pleasing was his chemistry with the Tosca of Joyce El-Khoury. Her dynamic refinement of phrase and gesture was remarkable, especially under the circumstances, and she fined down the middle of “Vissi d’arte” to a silver thread. Hers is not a stage-stealing Tosca of diva stereotype but a quixotic heroine whose murder of Scarpia carried the force of spontaneity. John Lundgren’s portrait of the villainous chief was effective enough, though not drawn with the subtlety or the Italianate curl of his counterparts.

Directing the Helsingborg Philharmonic, Pier Giorgio Morandi grasped the possibilities and limitations of the event, and his pacing accumulated tension throughout Acts 2 and 3. The Te Deum of Act 1 was sung with full force by the Helsingborg Concert Choir and members of local church choirs, though their lack of amplification inevitably told against their impact. It was, all told, a Tosca to remember.

Peter’s press trip was funded by the Birgit Nilsson Stipendium