by Michael J. Vaughn
If you should be walking around Palo Alto this weekend, and hear a gorgeous, disembodied tenor voice ringing down the streets, don't be alarmed. It's just Richard Liszt singing "Tosca" with the West Bay Opera. Liszt, a last-minute addition who will spend this fall singing Wagner in Augsburg, Germany, brings a huge voice to the role of Cavaradossi in West Bay's latest production. Judging by his talent, it may be the last time you'll be seeing him in a venue as intimate as Lucie Stern Theater. (Liszt performs Friday and Sunday; William Gorton takes the role Saturday.)
Giacomo Puccini turned quite a feat by making this 1900 opera a hit; It's based on an 1887 play by Sardou that, even in operatic terms, is unremittingly sappy and melodramatic. Out of this unsteady foundation Puccini produced two of opera's most beloved arias, the soprano "Vissi d'arte" ("I have lived for art") and the tenor "E lucevan le stelle" ("Oh, shining stars"), in addition to two-and-a-half hours of sublime orchestration.
The title character, sung by Dawn Jensen Farry, is a singer who, through her love of the painter Cavaradossi, gets caught up in the politics of Rome in 1800, just as Napoleon's troops are battling the Italian General Melas at Marengo. Cavaradossi's harboring of a rebel republican hero, Angelotti (Fredderick Isozaki), places him under the thumb of the monarchist Baron Scarpia (Leland Morine), who subsequently uses the situation to force his affections upon Tosca. (The conflict has all the subtlety of a Dudley Do-Right cartoon, with Scarpia as Snidely Whiplash.)
So, the heck with the plot. Let's talk production values. West Bay continues to create settings worthy of Industrial Light and Magic; designer Jean-Francois Revon brings us a glorious stained-glass window for the church-bound first act, a scrupulously detailed russet apartment for the second and for the third the battlements of the Castel Sant' Angelo, replete with an enormous sculpted Winged Victory, set against lighting designer John Rathman's masterful sunrise. Richard W. Battle's costumery shines as well, especially Tosca's dazzling daisy-yellow dress in Act One.
In the presence of such luxurious appointments, and Liszt's beacon-like tenor, the remainder of the cast tends to pale, though not fatally. Farry gives the diva Tosca a worthy voice, but her movements are alternately stilted and frenetic. In "Vissi d'arte," in which Tosca pleads for Cavaradossi's life and her own virtue, she sings with a manic, overbroad emotionality where what is called for is something more quietly intense, more interior.
The exact reverse is displayed by Morine, who delivers a hulking, divinely hissable villain in Scarpia, but whose voice--reminiscent of a tenor trying to sing baritone--is constantly being drowned out by the orchestra.
Two of the supporting players stand out: the shaven-headed tenor Mark Hernandez as Scarpia's menacing "Pulp Fiction" henchman Spoletta and baritone Eric Coyne as a laughably weaselly Sacristan.
The orchestra under musical director Henry Mollicone performed well in the woodwinds (a particular delight of Puccini's score), and capably in the horns, but something was amiss in the strings: several passages in the third act came off downright flaccid and distracted from the drama on stage.
Despite these few flaws, the reasons to attend West Bay's "Tosca" far outweigh the drawbacks, and, in conclusion, we must return to Richard Liszt. When he kicks into the vocal equivalent of overdrive to ring out Cavaradossi's "Vittoria!" at the news of Napoleon's triumph, when the already brief execution-morning elegy of "E lucevan le stelle" seems to have passed before you've had a chance to savor it, you'll know why you keep returning to the opera.
What: "Tosca," by West Bay Opera
When: Three remaining shows; tonight, Feb. 21, and Saturday at 8:15 p.m.; Sunday at 2 p.m.
Where: Lucie Stern Theater, 1305 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto
Cost: $30, $15 for under 18
Information: 424-9999
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