Edmonton Opera takes on 'shabby shocker'

Edmonton Opera did not have to look far to find a director for Tosca, opening tonight at the Jubilee Auditorium for a three-day run.

Winnipeg-based Robert Herriot (HMS Pinafore, Pirates of Penzance) was just a stone’s throw away, and he has intimate knowledge of Tosca as both singer and director.

“The first time [I was involved] I was 19 years old. I played an altar boy. I had friends in the chorus and they suggested I come down. I’d never been backstage before. I stood there listening to the sopranos sing. There was a swell in the orchestra, a swell in the singing. I was being carried away and I was breathless. I’ve been in the Canadian Opera Chorus three times,” says Herriot.

Tosca was one of Puccini’s first forays into ‘verissimo’ opera — a style known for realism and huge emotion. “Like Wagner, he employed strong motifs and was a pioneer in that way.”

The plot itself revolves around political instability, abuse of power, false imprisonment, sexual assault, murder and suicide. When it debuted in 1900, certain members of the audience equated the dark themes with smut and called it “a shabby little shocker,” explains Herriot.

But it’s those very themes that are still alive today, making it one of the most performed operas in the world. And this tempts many directors to give it a contemporary reboot.

Herriot’s vision instead is more traditional, set in the 1800s.

“I have been in two newer productions and they fell flat. The work is so strong on its own. It doesn’t need help. Some operas lend themselves to new ideas, but Tosca doesn’t do well with gratuitous updating.”

In the storyline Tosca, a beautiful, tempestuous opera diva is tricked by the evil Baron Scarpia into believing her lover, Mario Cavaradossi, a painter and political activist, is having a secret affair.

Scarpia has Cavaradossi arrested and tortured hoping he will reveal the whereabouts of an escaped political prisoner. Cavaradossi refuses to speak. Scarpia makes a deal with Tosca to save her lover if she will submit to him and this sets up a chain of destructive events.

The score is epic, ideally suited for film. “It’s daunting. The singers have to be in really good control and they have to have sizeable voices with a large extended range.”

Herriot has cast a Tosca exposing more than great depth of anger and feistiness. Yannick-Muriel Noah “has a softness, a humour. She’s vulnerable, playful and multi-dimensional,” he says.

And Nathan Berg as her nemesis has journeyed into Scarpia’s deepest, darkest core. “He’s grown into the man with a quiet, internal evil. The assault scene is very uncomfortable.”

And Robert Breault’s Cavaradossi is quite charismatic. “Cavaradossi has an amazing chemistry with Tosca. There are moments I totally believe they are in love.”

It is not only the powerful singing moments Herriot touts. “It’s a roller coaster ride of emotions and you get sucked in visually. It’s like a Vermeer painting in motion.”