Tosca review: the Royal Opera House may be playing it safe, but it still sounds good

When in doubt, play safe, particularly if you are in charge of an opera house in London. The terrible plight of English National Opera is a warning of what can happen if an opera house loses its way artistically – as ENO has done over the past 15 years – and if philistine politicians taste blood, as Nadine Dorries and her friends did last year, pronouncing on ENO what was in effect a death sentence.

ENO’s current revival of The Handmaid’s Tale may be a brilliant ensemble performance, but there’s no sign yet of a reprieve for the company: as the opera economists all agree, the sums underpinning ENO’s hypothetical move to Manchester simply don’t add up.

The Royal Opera, meanwhile, are playing safe by bringing back Jonathan Kent’s production of Tosca for its umpteenth revival. Its strongest suit is the design by the late Paul Brown, the most gifted opera designer of his generation. Enormously prolific, he stamped every show with his bold originality. His church of Sant’Andrea della Valle is a turbulent panorama with robed and veiled figures lit by candles and wreathed in incense, the iron bars of the chapel suggesting established religion’s cruel exclusivity. His conception of Scarpia’s lair is grim and louring, and his presentation of the denouement is dusted with mist and stars.

The new cast are largely first class, while the orchestra is conducted by Karen Kamensek with an unusually refined attention to atmosphere. Director Lucy Bradley’s judgement falters just once – in a clumsily mimed scene at the start of the final act – but is otherwise very assured, while the central roles are taken by three outstanding singing actors.

With Marcelo Puente as the painter and republican Cavaradossi, Gabriele Viviani as the police chief Scarpia, and Ausrine Stundyte in the title role, a powerful emotional triangle is formed on which drama can be built. And that drama crackles with urgency from the opening scene in the church, as food is smuggled to a revolutionary on the run, and as we meet the star-crossed lovers in flirtatious form.

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Puente’s graceful bel canto and imposing physical presence ground the action, while Viviani’s scheming Scarpia comes across as an unexpectedly philosophical voluptuary, as he sows doubt in Tosca’s mind about Cavaradossi’s fidelity, and attempts to insinuate himself as a more acceptable lover. His every syllable and every gesture has a reptilian authority. And there is comparable authority in the way this Tosca, having commanded the stage as capricious and demanding, now reveals herself as jealous to a pathological degree, and easy meat for Scarpia.

The great act two duet-duel, in which Scarpia and Tosca initially circle around each other, turns into a sweaty, dirty, half-naked attempted rape. And while Tosca sings her great aria “Vissi d’arte” (“I Lived for Art”), it looks as though she’s giving in: the way she suddenly finds the resolve to murder her tormentor, then staggers about in shock at what she has done, is acting of a high order.

And the execution scene has a cruel beauty. First with the soldiers standing like marble statues until called to action, then with Cavaradossi’s realistically physical reaction to the bullets, and finally with Tosca’s deranged leap from the battlements.

Royal Opera House, until 21 July