TOSCA
Music by Giacomo Puccini
Libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa
Seattle Opera
McCaw Hall, Seattle Center
Opening weekend (May 3 and 4)

Puccini's ever-popular opera Tosca resonates differently at different times. How fortunate that Seattle Opera gives us a chance to revisit it at this moment in our collective experience. The story of a lecherous, brutal autocrat who separates couples in love, destroys people for speaking their beliefs, and makes those targeted want to leave the country certainly feels more relevant today than it did ten years ago, when the company last presented Tosca on the mainstage. (Five years ago, during the COVID lockdown, a video version filmed at St. James Cathedral was substituted for a planned run.)

During the opening night performance, the thoroughly engaged audience cheered when desperate Tosca drove a knife into her tormentor, Scarpia. It was a reaction conductor Leonardo Sini and director Brenna Corner said they have never experieced in any prior performance. Audience members at the post-show Q&A confirmed a strong emotional response, given today's grim realities of fascism and misogyny.

At the podium, Italian maestro Sini led the Seattle Symphony orchestra and singers with impeccable coordination. On opening night, Armenian soprano Lianna Haroutounian as Tosca and Korean tenor Yonghoon Lee as her lover, the painter Mario Cavaradossi, sang with powerful, soaring voices. Their acting also credibly established the charming love between irreverent Cavaradossi and devout Tosca in the first act. Lee's acting lacked subtlety in Acts 2 and 3, when things turned tragic, but Haroutounian's remained persuasive throughout, especially as she dropped to her knees in desperation at the end of her "Vissi d'arte" ("I lived for art") aria.

As Scarpia, Serbian baritone Zeljko Lucic had a difficult act to follow, as the previous mainstage Scarpia was Seattle favorite Greer Grimsley, with his Wotan-worthy bass baritone. However, Lucic having played the role for the Metropolitan Opera and Deutsche Oper Berlin, has perfected the villian's imposing presence. The end of Act 1 was especially chilling, as Scarpia disclosed his sordid impulses and plans during the Te Deum sung by the 46-member Seattle Opera Chorus and a 15-member youth chorus.

In the alternate cast performance the next day, Basque soprano Vanessa Goikoetxea as Tosca gave a fiery, impassioned performance and sang beautifully. American baritone Craig Colclough as Scarpia conveyed just as much villainy as Lucic had. Their Act 2 confrontation was more violent and physical - and therefore more dramatically satisfying - than that of the opening night cast.

Kosovan tenor Rame Lahaj as the alternate-cast Cavaradossi might have been having a bad day, for he encountered intonation problems and gave an altogether lackluster performance.

Tosca contains some of opera's most heartrending music. In the final act, as Cavaradossi prepared for his death by writing a letter to his beloved Tosca, the loneliness in Benjamin Lulich's excellently executed clarinet solo traveled directly to the audience's tear ducts. Cavaradossi's death felt real and devastating, as did Tosca's final act of defiance.

The scenery itself is worthy of praise as a work of art. Seattle Opera is fortunate to own these trompe l'oeil backdrops, which look like real buildings, not at all like painted canvas. Lighting designer Connie Yun deserves much credit for the effectiveness of this visually stunning production.

For audience members less than enthralled with the recent Magic Flute production, the return to traditional sets and period costumes is a relief. Though designed in the 1950s, the production brings to life the all-too-real drama and tension in our current world, thanks to an impressive international cast and conductor and our talented homegrown orchestra.

Performances run through May 17. Click here for more information and to purchase tickets.