TOSCA, Welsh National Opera,The Apollo Oxford

If you like thrills, spills and melodrama, then Tosca, the Dynasty of operas, a three-act tragedy of love and betrayal, is for you. The plot, if you don't know it, runs as follows:

The famous opera singer Tosca is in love with the painter Cavaradossi, but jealous, and her suspicions seem confirmed when he starts acting suspiciously. However, Cavaradossi is actually doing something far more dangerous; he's trying to help a political prisoner. When brutal police chief Scarpia finds out, he tries to use the situation to manouver Tosca into his bed, but things go terribly wrong.

Welsh National Opera's production recalls the history of Tosca, with sets which make Rome a solid, almost aggressively tangible presence and Pre-Raphaelite notes in the clothes and paintings. The solidity of the sets is undermined by a multplicity of doors; secret doors, doors which shut out love and let in danger, doors behind which police and torture and death are waiting. Over all the grim faces of uncaring gods stare out; an invisible Madonna and a tottering Pope for the trembling uncertainty of the first act, the face of Pan leering approvingly over the violent passions of the second, and a fearsome Angel of Death looming over the final.

In this vast stage populated by angels and gods, the singers (with the exception of Daniel Sumegi's disgustingly nasty Scarpia) seem strangely diminished, the lovers more chummily domestic than passionate, and any hope of escape or revolution pathetically impotent in the face of Scarpia's police state. But, when it all comes crashing down, the tragedy is made all the more poignant because the heroes are, well, a bit ordinary, and the singing is exquisite, and the music excellent, and when Tosca sings "Vissi d'arte" your heart breaks, just a little, just as it should.

Jeremy Dennis 25/10/02