Adam Smith and Sinéad Campbell-Wallace
(Picture: Genevieve Girling)Anyone familiar with the austere minimalism of Christof Loy’s productions will have been surprised to see his Tosca trailed as ‘stylishly traditional’, even ‘glamorous’. It may be superficially more traditional than one might have expected, but it’s certainly not an opulent spectacle in the manner of Franco Zeffirelli’s celebrated 1960s staging, and far more penetrating.
The white-walled church interior of Act I (designer Christian Schmidt) is more brightly lit than usual (Olaf Winter) and the action set right in front of us, not in a dimly lit side-chapel, with a big gain in immediacy. We were warned that because of Noel Bouley’s vocal indisposition, he would act the role of Scarpia but it would be sung from the wings by Roland Wood. That scarcely prepared us for the electrifying entrance of the police chief in the church, with Wood suddenly appearing in a box startlingly close to the front stalls.
