Tosca is an opera
for a diva about a diva. No wonder this perennial Puccini favourite is, to many
sopranos, the ultimate prize of the repertoire. Floria Tosca is an opera singer
trapped between the artist she loves and the dictator who lusts after her, and
in the Royal Opera’s latest revival, the spotlight falls on two fast-rising
stars who take on the role in turn.
I remember speaking to Angela Gheorghiu about Tosca once: she declared that in this role she was simply playing herself. So does a soprano have to be a diva - in every sense - to be a great
Tosca?
Amanda Echalaz, 36, thinks not. She shot to
prominence in this same work at Opera Holland Park in 2008, since when it has
become her “signature” role (audiences may also have spotted her in the Cardiff Singer of the World 2005 in which she represented her native South Africa). More recently she has performed Tosca at ENO and, crucially, stepped in at Covent Garden about three years ago when Angela Gheorghiu dropped out - since when she has been hailed as this star's successor in the role. “I never get tired of singing it,” she says.
For
her, she adds, “Tosca is a very human figure: she’s full of wonderful qualities
and like most people she has her flaws, which makes her very likeable. I’m
drawn to the passionate, fiery side of her: she has a real zest for life. Her
diva characteristics are obvious, but it’s more interesting to try to find the
real woman behind that, especially the real woman in love.” Echalaz herself,
unlike Tosca, seems serene and relatively down to earth. She identifies with
Tosca’s vitality and passion for music – but there, she insists, the
resemblance ends. “Playing someone so
extreme can be liberating, but I’m a little calmer in real life.”
But the Latvian soprano Kristine Opolais, 33, whose 2011
Royal Opera House debut in Puccini’s Madama
Butterfly took her audience by storm, declares simply: “Tosca is like me!
She’s an opera singer and she’s very jealous.
"You can find everything in this
very colourful and powerful woman. She’s strong, emotional and impulsive, and
what happens to her is a great tragedy as she gives everything she is capable
of giving for love. I feel very at home when I sing this role.”
Opolais, who is married to the conductor Andris Nelsons and
has recently had her first child, adds with a laugh that she thinks “divas” are
inherently “not normal”. “Who would want to do this job? You’re nervous, you go on stage and all the time you
are afraid whether the audience will love you or not. Even if you are stable,
you are always afraid. So I think Tosca is already a little bit crazy – as
every big diva has to be.”
