The trembling and waiting for the briefly ill opera diva Anna Netrebko was worth it. On Saturday evening at the Salzburg Festival, she gave the scenic and thematically gloomy world of Giacomo Puccini’s “Tosca” that premiere glamor that one might expect from a star of her caliber.
“I gave my singing for the stars and the sky …” When Anna Netrebko is deeply touched in one of the most emotional arias in the opera world (“Vissi d’arte” – “I lived for art”) one of those magical moments that were so sorely missed in the Corona period without live culture. When the stage performance merges with the work’s libretto.
The resumption of Michael Sturminger’s Easter Festival “Tosca” from 2018 is a solid, coherent production per se. With an equally outstanding and nuanced performance by superstar Anna Netrebko – from cozy, warm vows of love to deepest despair over the torture of her lover to the melodramatic tragedy in the face of death – she was given that final shine at the festival premiere on Saturday evening Maybe it was missing the first time. While – owing to the plot and the set design – the sky over the protagonist increasingly darkened, the exceptional singer flooded the room from her first scene with the radiance of her stage presence and the unique timbre of her soprano.
Also great are “Scarpia” Ludovic Tézier (already there in 2018) as well as the sometimes too hard timbred “Cavaradossi” Yusif Eyvazov and the “highly dramatic” Vienna Philharmonic with Marco Armiliato.