During her set piece in this act, “Vissi d’arte”, Racette avoided the detached grand manner and sang the familiar aria with histrionic commitment that vividly communicated her character’s momentary despair. Where some sopranos spit the words “Il prezzo”, Racette murmured them wearily as if she fully expected the interview would degenerate to a sordid proposal. Her facial expression of resignation and revulsion when asking Scarpia’s price for her lover’s life was especially effective. As the intensity of the opera began to tighten in Act II, this Tosca met each crisis with a combination of nobility and hard-nosed pragmatism. She conveyed the heroine’s fiery, artistic temperament with convincing flair, and sang securely with vocal aptness. The production does not recontextualize the piece: it is Puccini’s brilliant, but often maligned warhorse straight up: a tale set in Rome in June 1800 about a diva, her lover, a corrupt police chief and how their heated passions lead them all to their respective dooms.įrom her first entrance, Racette’s Tosca was every bit the diva, and she was engrossing to behold. Thierry Bosquet’s current production design, in many ways an archival reconstituting of the original one, was introduced in 1997 and has provided an old-school, respectful treatment of Puccini’s pot-boiler ever since. Remarkably, the sets from the original production were in use until Jean-Pierre Ponnelle’s new production opened in 1972. Tosca was the opera for the very first opening night in the War Memorial Opera House on 15 October 1932, and is therefore an important work in the company’s history. The head-to-head scheduling will naturally invite comparisons, but I was happy to report on the second cast and give this group their due without allusions to La Gheorghiu. I attended the second night, when a cast anchored by Puccini heroine extraordinaire Patricia Racette made a persuasive case that this was the Tosca cast to see. The Thursday opening made headlines when the leading lady was felled by illness and a new talent, Melody Moore, made her mark in storybook fashion.

Continuing the experiment from the opening of the season, San Francisco Opera’s current run of Tosca has several performances occurring on consecutive days or in close proximity, necessitating two different casts.

Tosca opera sf