Update (thanks for the info little ghost!) :-) For all those who have missed it first time around here is another chance to hear the marvellous Tosca from the Met Broadcast):
Giacomo Puccini: "Tosca"Samstag, 08. Mai 2010, 19:30 WebRadio Ö1 (this would be 18,30 in UK) http://oe1.orf.at/programm/tag/20100508---------------------
Isn't it just amazing what the adrenaline rush of the 2nd act transformed itself into in act3? It was definitely one of the most beautiful renditions i have ever heard. Not even the applause at the end of Lucevan was able to cut through the emotional web of it. I cannot be thankful enough to Luisi, this amazing orchestra, Jonas and Ms Racette for making time almost stand still. I lingered on every single note, on every word and this last half and hour (as well as the entire show) will stay with me for a loooooong loooooooong looooooooong time. I am grateful not only for the music and the singing, but above all for feeling so deeply touched.
Dolci mani..... and now i can... live happily ever after!
ohhhh!! If you hear a BIG bang it's because i have just exploded with pride!! That was an exquisite Vittoria! and Carnefice!!!!. Soooo made in Jonas! It sounded incredibly easy breezy (not because it is, but because he knows how do it best :-) It was clear and powerful and may i say elegant???? It stopped when the music wanted it to stop and he sounded like he could have gone on for more, but didn't :-) And that was one of the clearest, smartest sung Carnefice i ever heard from him. Every single word was audible and understandable and it still packed a punch! I'm just going to keep gloating for a while.... So very very very well done JK!!!
More: Is it wrong to want to throw yourself at this Scarpia fellow? I can just feel myself floating towards him.... this is magnetism!!!
And the public, don't touch another bloody espresso in the intermission!!!! Sit on your hands if you must, but pleasseeee don't clap before JK stops singing!! Just enjoy those precious notes till the end and let me enjoy them too... God!
And Racette sounds just gorgeouusss!!! Hach!
Update right now: OMG.... OMG!!!!!! what a feast!!! and the voices feel like they are trickling down my spine... pure opera-heaven!!
Tosca divinaaaa......
Photo: Cory Weaver/Metropolitan Opera via BBC Radio3 pageSo tomorrow almost everyone get's a chance to listen:
1pm NY time, 6pm London time, 7pm CET time (and for others check out
here).
According to the
NY Times: "‘TOSCA’ Luc Bondy’s production of “Tosca,” the much-debated staging that opened the Metropolitan Opera’s season and elicited vociferous boos for the creative team, is back. But the new cast is terrific, which makes a huge difference. The soprano Patricia Racette is a deeply expressive and impassioned Tosca; the dashing tenor Jonas Kaufmann triumphs as Cavaradossi, singing by turns with burnished power and plaintive pianissimos; and the towering bass-baritone Bryn Terfel is a menacing and mesmerizing Scarpia. There is only one more chance to hear this cast, conducted with sweep and intensity by Fabio Luisi. "
You can listen:
Bayern Klassik here (you can listen by clicking right where it says Live horen or
here )
France Musique here (click left on écouter le direct)
BBC Radio 3 here (click above right on the
Listen live iplayer or on the right on this blog the BBC3 widget) --> with pictures and details as always :-)
RTV Radio Classica here (click above right where it says Radio
classica en
directo,
Haz click para
escuchar)
Enjoy and in bocca al lupo to everyone on the Met stage and in the pit :-)
........
It seems my overdose of Tosca has somehow triggered my subconsciousness. Although because of its originality I kept mentioning the Carsen Tosca I saw in Zurich, what has been almost haunting me these last 2 weeks is the ROH Tosca I saw a few years ago. Until about an hour or so ago I wouldn’t even have been able to tell you if it was 2007 or 2008….
Reading the papers and various reviews these days I kept getting strangely nostalgic because I have heard Jonas Kaufkmann’s first Tosca a the ROH and tomorrow I will hear it from the Met. There have been various in between, but reading about the Met Tosca somehow brought me closer to the first one than any of the others…
I still lived in Edinburgh back then and I booked a Tosca at whim because I hadn’t seen any in a while. The cast was known except for Mario, who was tba when I booked. The shows were barely half sold when the run began and nobody liked the production much. Pappano was to conduct.
And conduct he did! There is a before an after for me with Tosca thanks to Pappano. He made Puccini sound beautiful, emotional, romantic and passionate and most of all real. All was done and he took us as deep or as high as one can imagine without ever overdoing it. He kept the beat of our hearts always louder than the music and for the first time in my life i hang on every single note of this score.
Then there was this newborn-Mario, who made us giggle and melt, who suddenly made not only two arias but all duets stand out, who sung Vittoria from all fours and grabbed Scarpia by his collar to shout him Carnefice in the face! And who together with Pappano created the most amazing 3rd act I have ever heard. For the first time in my life there was no applause after Lucevan! ( Not once, not twice, in none of the three performances I went to..) Because an audience of 2200 followed Mario’s every last breath, because the spell could and would not be broken ( a lady next to me stopped her husband from clapping with a begging gesture). Because this Mario hugged the wooden stump where he would be shot as if it was Tosca’s form, his tortured hands tremblingly caressing it as if his lover’s curves. Because this Mario knew he was going to die, because he sang the sweetest “dolci mani” and brought many in the audience to tears with his “parlami ancora come dianzi parlavi … ”. I’ve never seen people cry at the end of Tosca before, even before Mario is shot.
How is it done? No idea, ask JK! It just seams it is not about the piani, the high notes , the long notes or whatever.. It is about what Mario feels and how he feels it, about his life and death, about his love of art and freedom, and above all his love for Floria.
But there is such a thing like a Tosca where you are too touched to applaud; I know because I remember how it felt to be there.
The whole run sold out after the first performance and I remember going straight to the box office the morning after the first one and buying my next ticket. And the next.. And had I not been sternly advised that 3 were enough! I would have gladly trotted back down from Edinburgh for one more :-)
And guess what I just found out? It’s how this blog started! I’ve never remembered what I first wrote about… Seems my subconscious did ;-) And it wanted me to remember those Toscas these days… because it is almost exactly two years ago :-)
You are welcome to go searching and read it if you like :-) But, it’s in Spanish ( kind of pompous sounding some of it, what was I thinking???). turns out I always was a lazy/sloppy writer… I my first post ever about an opera I call JK.. well, JK:-) ( I am thereby demanding copyright!) I said he was “polifacetico” ( I know!! Pompous of me..) and I go on saying about Vittoria and Carnefice that they are a perfect pairing of freedom and despair, release and vengeance :-) ( hmm, still agree with some of that:-) Not surprisingly I was already waxing on and on and on about some “Quale occhio al mondo” and “dolci mani” (the latter still is my favourite bit of the entire score..).
Anyway, that Tosca was special, still is special so I want to remember and I wish to celebrate! So tomorrow’s is definitely much more than just one more Tosca! :-)
And no matter if anyone tells me how many are enough or too many, I will say : I’ll be the judge of that, and at the moment I am looking forward to many many many more (and hoping that one day I’ll relive the “too beautiful to applaud” one ).
I just wish I was sitting there live tomorrow to be able to copy paste my first post ending :
...Viendo la sonrisa traviesa de crío que le sale a JK en los bravos, gritos y aplausos me entro la risa acordándome de las palabras de Floria:Oh, come la sai benel'arte di farti amare!
Well, nothing here to stop me from having a giggle during curtain calls tomorrow :-)
Turns out i probably do like Tosca as an opera after all ;-))
