Review: Becoming Tosca, Arcola Theatre

As we approach the end of the magnificent festival of alternative opera that is Grimeborn at the Arcola, Prologue Opera offer a revival of their 2024 production Becoming Tosca. Ah, yes, not quite the iconic Puccini work then? A different take, possibly? Well, indeed, you guessed right, as the premise of Prologue Opera is to imagine a backstory to the characters involved that merges into an abridged version of the mighty work. It is a fascinating concept, and here, original director Christopher Cowell has plumped for an Evita-style set-up in the barrios of Argentina that quickly moves to the barricades as the revolutionary movement forms to oust the dictators and their dreaded secret police (think General Galtieri and ‘los desaparecidos).

So this is an opportunity to really get inside these characters; to inform them as they’re known in the traditional opera. Frank Moon has provided the music for this early section – a kind of sub-Respighi mode, approachable but definitely not very challenging, musically speaking. Indeed, it is somewhat four-square, with just occasional hints to the themes from Puccini and sporadic vague references to tango. As to the insights, well, Tosca starts as a miracle singer in the choir who makes the statue of the Madonna shed a tear; Cavaradossi is then a gifted painter who tries to find fortune abroad but is ineluctably drawn back to his home town and to his childhood sweetheart, Tosca, despite the artistic and political compromises he has to make, and his young assistant, Angelotti, is fully engaged in the rebel uprising; Scarpia is training for the priesthood, but his violent fervour means he is not invited to full ordination and so he becomes head of the secret police (??). Meanwhile, Tosca has been taken on as a singing student and achieves her fame, which is the starting point of the opera. This is frankly no radical departure from the original. The one character that is interesting is Spoleta (Jonathan Cooke), here a working-class, ignored young man: the ‘shadowman’, who finally finds self-worth and validation as Scarpia’s henchman.

It has to be said that the actual singing is confident and strong, though it is unfair to pit Harry Gentry’s untrained voice against the other trained professionals. Yet once again, here is an opportunity missed – in a small venue, the challenge is to find variety and nuance and convey character through the vocal line. There is too much one-dynamic blasting going on (Brendan Collins as Scarpia, the main culprit), although Anna Sideris comes into her own in the ‘Vissi d’Arte (I lived for art)’ aria, despite an initial overpronounced vibrato in her early numbers. A huge shout out to the lone clarinettist, Boyan Ivanov, who is incomparable in Cavaradossi’s ‘E Lucevan le Stelle (And the Stars Shone Brightly)’. I also loved the amber sherry notes of his bass clarinet playing, blending seamlessly with Berrak Dyer’s wonderfully sensitive playing on piano. 

The level of acting disappointed too. Ironically, trying to get people involved in opera (which is the declared aim of Prologue Opera) needs us to engage with the drama and in Tosca, the stakes are huge. I did not get that from Sideris’s contained and slightly suburban characterisation of Tosca – more physical desperation and fiery insecurity faced by the impossible choices she faces, please; and Collins’s Scarpia was frankly just too arch all the way through 

This is a missed opportunity, as the whole evening promises so much. The music is wonderful to hear, but overall I felt this production failed to achieve its goals, and that, by some way.

Director: Rebecca Marine (revival), Christopher Cowell (original) 
Musical Director: Berrak Dyer (revival), Christopher Cowell (original)
Lyricist & Translator: Christopher Cowell
Composer: Frank Moon
Designer: Viva Halton Wright

Becoming Tosca runs at Arcola Theatre until Saturday 6 September.