Evan Zimmerman/MetOpera

Due to this season’s harsh cold and recent norovirus spike, parterre box lost its assigned Tosca reviewer, so I stepped up to attend the Met’s third show of this run, the company’s 1020th performance of Puccini’s popular melodrama, a work I used to actively dislike. While I still don’t love Tosca, opera doesn’t get any better than Friday night’s fantastic Clash of the Titans between Sondra Radvanovsky and Bryn Terfel!

During my first twenty years of going to the Met, I only made it to Tosca once: in 1986, I was visiting New York and figured I really must catch Placido Domingo and Eva Marton in what turned out to be her first performance after Juan Pons dislocated her jaw at the premiere. It was fun, but I then continued to avoid The Perils of Floria until a friend in 2002 gave me a ticket he couldn’t use to see Sylvie Valayre, Richard Leech, and James Morris. I wasn’t whelmed and instead my mind wandered to a video I’d recently discovered of Madame Vera Galupe-Borszkh’s classic second act, a brilliant parody of the iconic theatrical shtick that many Tosca lovers relish.

My slow conversion to fan began with the controversial Luc Bondy version, the first of many new production misfires by the Peter Gelb administration. As a devoted Karita Mattila fan, I had to go, but her off-kilter interpretation didn’t really work. However, I wasn’t dissuaded from returning to the Bondy later the same season. What a difference a completely new cast meant: Patricia Racette (replacing the originally announced Mattila), Jonas Kaufmann, and Bryn Terfel, all appearing in their roles for the first time at the Met, at last showed me what a blast a no-holds-barred Tosca can be.

Since then, I’ve embraced the opera some of the time, though Joseph Kerman’s pithy description is never far from my mind. But over the past decade Angela Gheorghiu, Sonya Yoncheva, Anna Netrebko, Aleksandra Kurzak, and Lise Davidsen have memorably revealed more and more facets of the endlessly fascinating ultimate prima donna role.

In 2011, my Valayre-gifting friend and I went to Radvanovsky’s first Met Tosca which included the extra frisson ofRoberto Alagna unexpectedly appearing as Cavaradossi, a last-minute replacement for an ailing Marcelo Alvarez. I’d been a fan (with reservations) of the diva since I first encountered her as Gutrune in 2000. Soon after she became Lincoln Center’s resident Verdi soprano and I mostly enjoyed her in I vespri siciliani, Don Carlo, Ernani, Il trovatore and Stiffelio.Her huge voice, while undeniably thrilling, could also be harsh and off-pitch. In 2011, her Tosca proved promising; fourteen years later, it was absolutely magnificent, a completely satisfying musical and dramatic embodiment of a challenging role by an artist at the peak of her powers.

Evan Zimmerman/MetOpera

Fans have been concerned over the past months about Radvanovsky as she’s pulled out of an alarming number of important engagements, particularly of newer roles like Turandot and Lady Macbeth. But, now as a veteran Tosca—Friday was her 25th Met appearance as Puccini’s heroine—she offered a richly detailed portrayal full of her own illuminating touches which she brought to the all-purpose traditional David McVicar staging that Gelb quickly commissioned to replace the much-loathed Bondy.

I’ve always thought that a Tosca slightly older than Cavaradossi made a lot of dramatic sense, and Radvanovsky played with girlish delight her duet with Brian Jadge as her tall and handsome painter-lover. Her jealousy over the blonde portrait was lightly done: her teasing request for him to give his Madonna dark eyes displayed no prima donna tantrum. But there was no doubt of their passion when she joined Jagde in thrilling fortissimo high notes that elicited audibly ecstatic sighs from the packed audience that included eager fans in the now rarely-sold standing room sections of both the Orchestra and Family Circle.

Radvanovsky’s first encounter with Terfel’s forbidding Scarpia showed a more mature and reserved Tosca, though one easily manipulated by him. Some have suggested that the soprano, who is now 55, had taken time to warm up in previous performances, but she was in firm command of her instrument from her offstage cries of “Mario!” to her tearful escape from Scarpia.

During the high-stakes second Act, her soaring high notes still could singe like a blow torch, but she also deftly tackled Tosca’s most vulnerable music with deeply-felt piani. Her raptly stunning “Vissi d’arte,” for once really feeling like a prayer, began standing quietly, Radvanovsky then sinking to her knees only near the climax. One of her most arresting touches occurred when she intoned her devastating “Avanti a lui tremava tutto Roma” just inches from the corpse’s face. She began with a husky laugh but which then dissolved into wracking sobs as she fully realized the immensity of her lethal act.

Her third Act featured the most excitedly optimistic Tosca I’ve ever encountered. Her duet with the condemned man brimmed with hopeful glee, and she wickedly brought her forearm to her brow to demonstrate (twice!) how Mario should feign being shot. As he stood facing the firing squad, Radvanovsky gave a quick, encouraging wave before the real shots rang out. Only in her slightly uneasy high B-flat before leaping to her death did Radvanovsky’s blazing top falter.

In Terfel, singing one of his final performances as Scarpia, the soprano found a most worthy adversary. Though the lowest parts of his bass-baritone could be weak, he bit into his music with a frightening ferocity. His “courting” of Tosca didn’t suggest any amorous intent, from the first he was simply going through the motions to trap his prey. As he towered over most everyone, Terfel’s Scarpia frequently menaced Tosca by leaning toward her, sometimes from a distance but often from just over her shoulder with a wicked glint in his eye.

Evan Zimmerman/MetOpera

At nearly 60, Terfel’s voice has become somewhat reduced in size which caused him to strain as he sought to dominate the chorus in the Te Deum that concludes the first Act. But in the more lightly scored monologue that begins the second, he roared with long-familiar incisiveness. Only in his broadly expansive advances to Tosca did Terfel need to bark or finesse the high notes. Though he clearly believes it’s now time to drop the role and though he may have lacked the sheer brute force he brought to the Baron in 2011, Terfel’s Scarpia still proved mighty scary.

Perhaps inspired by the towering artists with him, Jagde performed Cavaradossi with unaccustomed sensitivity and nuance. While still he still shot out impressively ringing high notes in his “Vittorias!,” he endowed both “Recondita armonia” and “E lucevan le stelle” with lovely soft dynamics and in the latter a movingly palpable dread. Patrick Carfizzi who has been the Sacristan in every Tosca since the production premiered in 2018 performed with his accustomed brio but mugged a bit less than the last time I saw him.

Building upon her highly acclaimed company debut leading Madama Butterfly last season, Xian Zhang continued her bid to become the Met’s most-valued Puccini conductor. Her reading reveled in the beguiling details that dot the score while accompanying her singers with care, particularly Radvanovsky who often sought quite elastic tempi. However, she urged on the second act’s surging drama so forcefully that she sometimes covered Terfel but never Radvanovsky.

While I was very grateful to experience perhaps today’s finest Tosca, I couldn’t help wishing that I was instead seeing Radvanovsky as Minnie or Gioconda or even Liza, a recent new role. The clock’s ticking, Mr. Gelb. Lucky Chicago will hear Radvanovsky in three performances of her new all-Puccini extravaganza. Top price is a dizzying $355!
But one can likely expect some first-time SR performances; she previewed her Cio-Cio-San with Piotr Beczala late last year. But what I really want to hear is her “Tu tu piccolo iddio”!

A single Tosca with this stellar cast remains: Thursday’s final performance can be heard via the Met’s free livestream. But I urge anyone who can to attend in person an absolutely thrilling take on Puccini’s big, bold shocker.

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