Photo by Michael Brosilow
Tosca, once notoriously called “that shabby little shocker” by an author/critic, is an opera about passion and murder. I wish there had been more passion in the performance I saw at Skylight Music Theatre on Sunday afternoon. Too often the singing, acting, conducting and playing lacked the strong emotion that is at the heart of a Giacomo Puccini score.
Cassandra Aaron Black, as Tosca, was the high point of this production, with a voice suitable to the role. Her singing sometimes bloomed to exciting dramatic climaxes. As Cavaradossi, her lover who is arrested and killed, tenor Chaz’men Williams-Ali was at his best in his highest notes, but his light lyric voice is miscast in Puccini’s music. He generated little heat as an actor. As the evil police chief Scarpia, David Kravitz also seemed miscast in music that asks for a larger voice. As an actor he didn’t conjure much of the character’s presence and menace.
Conductor Viswa Subbaraman took deliberate and slow tempos, which were not flattering to the singers, and too often prevented Italianate flow and phrase. Little of Puccini’s musical style emerged. It is typical for Skylight to reduce the orchestration for any production. This was especially noticeable in this score, which calls for powerful orchestral drama, undermined by the small size and pale playing of the Skylight orchestra.
The design of the production gave the impression of being half-formed. The abstract unit set was serviceable but added little to the impact. The costuming was an inchoate mix of styles, with Tosca in vaguely 1940s or1950s dresses, Cavaradossi in painter’s garb of undefined period, and Scarpia in a baffling leatherette, futuristic Star Trek bad guy look.
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Just a short mention of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra concert heard Saturday evening. MSO principal clarinetist Todd Levy was stunning in the Aaron Copland Concerto for Clarinet and String Orchestra, with sensitive and brilliant playing. John Adams’ The Chairman Dances, commissioned by MSO in 1985, was Edo de Waart and orchestra at their very best. However, De Waart’s account of George Gerswhin’s An American in Paris was rather bland and unpersuasive.
