“O Scarpia, avanti a Dio!” (O Scarpia, we will see you before God’s throne!) One last angry cry, and Floria Tosca throws himself from the Castel Sant’Angelo. No, not into the Tiber. Anyone who has ever been to Rome will have noticed that there is still quite a lot of land between the fortress and the river that no soprano in the world would be athletic enough to cross. Puccini, as we know, would have wished for Tosca’s end to be less complicated than this final leap. To this day, it continues to pose enormous challenges even to opera directors who have been trained in the theatre.
Otto Schenk, the old master, once made the wonderful parody “Tosca on the Trampoline and Other Opera Disasters” for the ORF, which the Munich audience was always reminded of when the lights went out too late in the Luc Bondy Tosca and the poor singer was left dangling rather unflatteringly from a belt between the stage sky and the stage floor. Now there is the follow-up production by Kornél Mundruczó at the Bavarian State Opera. If you want to know how his Tosca fares in terms of jumping at the end: there are performances on May 26th/29th and on June 1st, 3rd, 6th and 9th, and then at the end of July at the Opera Festival.
While we are on the nostalgia trip (with Otto Schenk and the Luc Bondy Tosca): Edita Gruberova sings “Casta diva” in Jürgen Rose’s ” Norma“-production. That was one of those moments when time stood still in the National Theater. Everyone who has sung the part in Bellini’s opera since then has to be measured against the bel canto queen who died in 2021. This includes Sonya Yoncheva, who will now sing the druid Norma at the State Opera (May 30, June 2, 7, 10, and in July). The Maltese tenor Joseph Calleja has been announced as Pollione, and Tara Erraught (Aldagisa), who was once part of the opera studio and then the ensemble of the State Opera, is always a welcome addition.
Operas with women’s names in the title: Things usually end badly for the female protagonists, see Tosca, see Norma, see The Traviata (at the State Opera again from June 18th). But there are also survivors. Gioachino Rossini’s ” The Cenerentola” is such a stroke of luck, because of course Angelina, Cinderella, gets her prince Don Ramiro in this opera buffa at the end, and the bitchy stepsisters Clorinde and Tisbe look up at the mountains through the stovepipe. In the legendary production by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle from 1980, Isabel Leonard (title role), Lawrence Brownlee (Don Ramiro) and Emily Sierra (Tisbe) sing at the Bavarian State Opera, with Ivor Bolton at the podium (14, 16 and 19 June).
And another diva, she will be in the Gärtnerplatztheater in June (7th, 9th, 12th, 15th and 29th), sleepwalking. In Vincenzo Bellini’s ” La Sonnambula” the heroine Amina sets off on unconscious excursions at night, which leads to plenty of complications in the peaceful village idyll in the Swiss Alps. She is actually promised to the young, wealthy farmer Elvino, who broke off his engagement to the landlady Lisa because of her. Her hour of revenge seems to have come when Amina is found sleeping in the guest room of Count Rodolfo, who is travelling incognito. Until everything is cleared up at the end, you can enjoy virtuoso coloraturas and wonderful choral singing in this 2015 production by Michael Sturminger. The title role is sung by Jennifer O’Loughlin.