Riley and Avery

So, I went to see the Metropolitan's live in HD presentation of Tosca yesterday morning. This is, by FAR, my favorite opera. I have seen Tosca three times live in performance; in Baltimore, D.C., and Denver. Honestly, I'll have to say that this was my least favorite of all of them. What has happened to the Met? I still enjoyed it, I really did. I love the opera and the story and the music. This was a new production from some dude from Switzerland who really butchered the set. I mean, really. During the intermission, they were interviewing the cast and crew. The producer is from Switzerland, speaking barely passable English. The soprano was from Finland and spoke fairly good English. The tenor was from Argentina and spoke hardly any English. The baritone was from The Republic of Georgia and spoke what can only be considered no English. He was funny when they handed him the microphone. He kept saying one word phrases and such, and the interviewer had to keep trying to figure out what he was trying to say. She was like "You seem like such a nice guy in real life, how do you find the evil to play a role like this?" and he was like "Um err, *nervous chuckle* baritone...bad role" and she was like "Baritone's always play the villains, right?" and he was like "yes, Iago...um...er." It just makes me wonder how they can ever get a production together with such language barriers. It's absolutely amazing that operas EVER happen.

Anyway, the tenor was phenomenal, and adorable in his interview. No, he wasn't hunky, but his voice was amazing. For such a big dude, he sure could sing so softly. The soprano was a perfectly fine soprano, but the totally absolute wrong choice for this role. She looked to be about 20 years too old to play Tosca, and her voice just wasn't right for the role, and as she is a "leading" soprano in the world of opera, I can only say that perhaps she is past her prime. Her diction was terrible, and her voice wasn't supple or limber. I couldn't understand what she was saying and had to look at the subtitles, which annoys me. The baritone was great as Scarpia, but I didn't like what the producer did with his character. He took the character waaaaaaay too far, way too lascivious. But the baritone did a great job with what he was given.

The sets sucked. Hard. I mean, come on! This opera takes place in Rome in 1800! Some opulence please! The bare bones set was boring and unrealistic. After the first act, the man behind me said "well, THAT was terrible." The set did nothing for the opera at all. Nothing. We need to run this producer out of town, after tarring and feathering him, of course. I KNEW that soprano was wrong for the role from her first vocal entrance, a "Mario! Mario! Mario!" from offstage, it was just a question of whether I would be able to stay and listen, or walk out. I stayed. One interesting part was at the very last moment, when traditionally Tosca leaps off the parapet to the backstage. This time she climbed a tower and "jumped" out over the stage. She lunged forward and just before her feet left the ground, the lights go out. I want to know how they did that. It was pretty neat.

I did enjoy the opera, don't get me wrong. But if I had actually seen it in the Met instead of in a movie theater, I would have been royally angry, paying all that money and getting all gussied up. There are some Met productions coming up that I wouldn't mind seeing, but won't be seeing any more "new productions." Carmen is playing this season, and Rudi wants to see that.

I'm totally aware that no one is going to be interested in this post. If you've gotten this far, I bet you know more about opera now than you ever wanted to know!