NEW YORK — Lise Davidsen’s entry into the hyperdramatic world of Puccini’s Tosca might initially seem out of character, out of fach, and out of fashion. When was the last time a soprano sang both the Marschallin and Tosca within a few seasons of each other? In fact, the opening Tosca at the Metropolitan Opera on Nov. 12 was previewed in Freddie De Tommaso’s 2022 aria album on Decca with Davidsen making a guest appearance in Tosca excerpts. Now, the two are together in a four-performance run through Nov. 23rd (he in his Met debut), starting with the Nov. 12 opening gala that also celebrated Puccini in New York with a short but excellent documentary shown before the performance. (Outside, a large photo of the composer reflected off the building’s glass, creating a ghostly image of Puccini looking in on the expansive lobby.)
Yet the run got off to a tentative start: Rehearsal was reportedly curtailed due to an internal matter. As it was, Davidsen and the Scarpia of Quinn Kelsey knew what they were about, but much of the Act I stage traffic seemed barely in the right place at the right time. This tale of a tempestuous singer caught between her freedom-fighter boyfriend and the evil police chief Scarpia needs to go like a speeding locomotive. Such matters are likely to improve closer to the Nov. 23 HD simulcast in movie theaters. Even under the opening-night circumstances, music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin generated a fair amount of electricity — as he usually does in Puccini.
Davidsen is the latest in a short list of Nordic voices — including Karita Mattila and Birgit Nilsson — who have claimed Tosca. She is doing so the entire season, earlier in Berlin, later in Vienna, and now in New York’s familiar, traditional, rich-in-detail production by David McVicar. This level of interest suggests that Italianate vocal warmth may not be a pre-requisite for this Norwegian soprano, whose cool, penetrating voice is the carrier of emotion rather than something expansive and enveloping that is the emotion itself. Intermission pundits pointed out that Nilsson successfully softened the Wagnerian edges of her voice for Tosca, as YouTube videos bear out.
But Davidsen had spectacularly varied coloration of the words, rendering them so thoughtfully and poetically in Act I that the translations in the Met titles were superfluous. The majesty of her voice meant that you missed nothing, even as far away as the lofty Family Circle, the less-expensive but acoustically advantageous seats where solid relationships between singers and fans are secured.
Her “Vissi d’arte” was contoured almost exactly the same as Nilsson’s, with the climatic B-flat and the following extreme pianissimo that made you hold your breath. Davidsen’s stage presence was also formidable: Her penetrating stare as she took leave of Scarpia in Act I told you that she intuitively foresaw the forces of destiny between them.
Interactions with Kelsey’s Scarpia had a highly original twist in Act II when Tosca bargains for her lover’s life. The sexual power play, usually about Scarpia seeking conquest in exchange for mercy, was sung by Kelsey as an honest declaration of love for a woman he would never have otherwise. Scarpia with a soul? Kelsey’s new dimension — his warm voice filled with longing — was not just convincing but suggested that, in a different time and place, they might actually become lovers.
That complicates Tosca’s murder plan but doesn’t deter her. Davidsen is a world-class stabber, attacking not just once but rounding the furniture and attacking again. In Act III, however, she was not a world-class jumper, exiting, in this production, off the side of the fortress walls rather than from the top. Mattila daringly beckoned the soldiers to follow her before jumping. Hildegard Behrens, however, was the best, leaping with arms outstretched and seeming to hang in the air for a split second.
About the tenor: The 30-year-old De Tommaso (of Italian and British parentage) is already well recorded with aria albums and a complete opera, showing a go-for-broke theatricality and a promisingly warm voice. But he didn’t start well. Sounding dense, dark, and amorphous in Act I, he reclaimed authority with his “Liberty reborn” A-sharp but then, in his big Act III moment, gussied up his music with interpolated expressions of agony — each one grabbing for audience heartstrings.
It felt like more like a vocal bag of tricks (though a rather enterprising one). Yes, there was hearty applause for this promising but somewhat ill-starred debut; staging strategies were needed to keep him from seeming considerably shorter in stature than Davidsen. And despite the opera’s grittiness, Tosca needs all the help it can get to suspend disbelief. Maybe it will with more rehearsal.
