July 27, 2025
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Tanglewood Music Festival 2025 – Andris Nelsons conducts Puccini’s Tosca

Tanglewood Music Festival 2025 – Andris Nelsons conducts Puccini’s Tosca

In this superb concert presentation, the cast moved about in front of the orchestra, successfully telling the story with wonderful singing (from memory) and acting. The three principals at the center of the plot brought their characters vividly to life, both vocally and dramatically.

In the title role Kristine Opolais convincingly portrayed the jealous diva whose weakness is exploited by Baron Scarpia but who finds the strength to slay the lecherous police chief, both to repel his advances and to save the life of her lover, the painter Mario Cavaradossi. Opolais was in fine voice in duets with Cavaradossi and especially in her moving ‘Vissi d’Arte’ aria in Act Two, expressing Tosca’s regret that her blameless life was not being appropriately rewarded.

SeokJong Baek was a marvelous Cavaradossi, conveying great charm in his initial aria, ‘Recondita armonia’, and in his loving relationship with Tosca. His character displayed steely fortitude in resisting the evil Scarpia, voicing thrilling exclamations of ‘Vittoria’ when he hears of Napoleon’s victory at Marengo over the alliance that controlled northern Italy. ‘E lucevan le stelle’, Cavaradossi’s lament as he awaits execution, was quite gorgeous.

Bryn Terfel brought his resonant voice to a carefully nuanced portrayal of Scarpia. His every gesture, facial expression and turn of phrase served to characterize Scarpia as a corrupt politician and lecherous sexual predator. Thanks to the “jumbotron” video screens, even those seated far from the stage could appreciate such subtleties as a shrug or a raised eyebrow. Terfel sang powerfully over the ensemble’s hymn at the end of Act One, anticipating his conquest of Tosca (“you make me forget God!”). Following the long ovation for ‘Vissi d’Arte, Scarpia mocked her with three slow claps of satirical applause before resuming his tactic of using her desire to save Cavaradossi’s life as leverage to get her to submit to his sexual demands.

Patrick Carfizzi was the Sacristan, a role he plays regularly at the Met, humorous as he punctuated Cavaradossi’s first aria, devout as he interrupted his routine to intone the Angelus, and dutiful in responding to Scarpia’s inquiries. Morris Robinson sang robustly as Angelotti, the political prisoner whose escape sets the plot in motion.

The remaining cast members also gave fine performances, not least Ari Davis, singing beautifully as a shepherd boy to begin the final Act.

From Nelsons and the BSO, Puccini’s score never sounded better, the musicians responding brilliantly to Nelsons, bringing out every detail of Puccini’s score, such as Jessica Zhou’s harp accompanying ‘Vissi d’Arte’ and William R. Hudgins’s clarinet contributions to ‘E lucevan le stelle’. The horns were terrific in the opening bars of Act Three and later as the firing squad departed. Singers from the Tanglewood Festival Chorus and the Boston University Tanglewood Institute comprised the excellent ensemble of clerics, citizens and children in Act One.

Dan Rigazzi’s staging was simple yet effective. He was careful to divide the plot’s action between the two sides of the stage. Thus, in Act One, set in the church of St. Andrea della Valle, Cavaradossi’s easel with his unfinished painting was at the audience’s right, the Sacristan washing the painter’s brushes on our left. In Act Two, in Scarpia’s apartment in the Palazzo Farnese, his desk was to the right and his dinner table to the left. And in the final Act, Cavaradossi’s conversation with the Jailer was on the left, and the execution took place to the right. The large video screens that offered close-ups and wide scenes had English titles superimposed on the images (as well as being projected above the stage).

The post Tanglewood Music Festival 2025 – Andris Nelsons conducts Puccini’s Tosca appeared first on The Classical Source.


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