Tosca at the Aotea Centre

By WILLIAM DART

Tosca was a shrewd choice to round off the New Zealand Opera's 2003 season.

Anthony Besch's Scottish Opera production, balancing jackbooted fascists with cartwheeling choirboys, was sympathetically re-staged by Jonathan Cocker and came with the original Peter Rice sets.

Spectacular they were, and resourceful with it. Alan Campbell's lighting, finding an individual tone for each act, was quite the best I have seen for some years.

Margaret Medlyn played Floria Tosca as the Eternal Diva. Her opening scene had just the right degree of archness, the soprano even taking time out at one point to adjust make-up while gently sparring with her lover.

In the final act, the essential theatricality of the character, adroitly judged by the singer, made the brutal impinging of reality all the more dramatically effective.

Only in the second act was there stridency, the result perhaps of over-playing against Rodney Macann's less than inspiring Scarpia.

One of our most professional baritones, Macann was emphatically not a Scarpia. Distinctly short on menace when incisive villainy was needed, too often he was struggling to be heard over the orchestra. Key lines were lost; his lustful lunge at Tosca was ludicrous.

With the entrance of a tortured Cavaradossi, Medlyn took heart - and control of her character - giving us some of the best singing of the evening in a radiant Vissi d'Arte, sobs and all, although conductor Alexander Ingram could look to tightening up the ensemble on this aria.

Rafael Rojas had a few stressed moments as Cavaradossi, starting with an awkward "gear change" in Recondita armonia, but the Mexican tenor brought a glowing and very Latin passion to everything he sang.

When he burst into his Act II Vittoria, Vittoria I suspect that half the theatre would have gladly marched behind him, and his Act III E lucevan le stelle was the stuff that tissues are needed for.

It was the undeniable chemistry between Cavaradossi and Tosca that made the production so satisfactory.

Of the smaller parts, David Griffiths' Sacristan was a jocular delight, even if his singing also struggled to penetrate the splendid playing of the Auckland Philharmonia.

Eddie Muliaumaseali'i's gripping few scenes as Angelotti made one wish that Puccini had allowed him a longer life on stage.

Liabilities aside, Tosca is a splendid piece of musical theatre and the experience of Medlyn and Rojas is well worth the price of the ticket.