Jonas Kaufmann pwns Covent Garden's Tosca

Tosca - Royal Opera House, 12 May 2008

Poor Micaela Carosi didn't have the best of luck in her Covent Garden debut as Tosca. On her big entrance - ping - she clipped her toe on something and almost went flying down a flight of steps. As she tussled with Scarpia mid-stab, a letter he'd been writing attached itself to her bead-encrusted shoulder, like some weird origami parrot. Only a tortuous back-scrubbing manoeuvre could make it drop. And the long train of her final act dress had a mind of its own, pausing to admire the scenery until she tugged it back into line.

I'd love to be able to say that after all her trials she delivered a dazzling performance. Well, she sang cleanly, powerfully and intelligently, but more like a stroppy housewife than a volcano of tempestuous passion. It left me cold.

Jonas Kaufmann on the other hand was the real thing. We all sort of knew his role debut as Cavaradossi might be pretty special - I wonder if the Royal Opera House would have been quite as packed out for a lesser tenor. But the brazen intensity of this performance was almost shocking.

It wasn't just the power - pushed to the max - or the thrilling ring to his top notes. He had the courage to make his final showpiece aria, E lucevan le stelle, conversational, almost meditative, a touching reflection on his memories of Tosca. There was tenderness and teasing humour in Qual occhio al mondo, where he drew from Carosi a human side that unfortunately failed to resurface agin later. His ability to bring something different and special to each role is what really marks him out as a performer though - there's never the slightest sense that he's repeating himself or falling back on time-proven tricks.

Paolo Gavanelli's Scarpia was another standout performance, intelligently underplayed with a chilling malice. And as is increasingly the case these days at Covent Garden, the smaller roles were all exceptionally well-filled. I particularly liked Kostas Smoriginas, a smouldering Angelotti, and the wheedling menace of Hubert Francis's Spoletta.

Antonio Pappano, apparently conducting at Kaufmann's insistence, lived up to his reputation as a singer's conductor, allowing perfomers all the space and freedom they needed.  The vitality of the performance spilled over into untidiness in places, never to serious detriment, though I wish I'd had money on the horns mucking up the start of the third act - in retrospect, a banker.

The low lighting at the start of each act was irritating - I want to see what's happening on stage, not just guess at it - but other obvious staging pitfalls were avoided, and I liked Scarpia's torture chamber, set James Bond-style behind a fake bookcase in the study.

But the nicest thing I can say about Jonathan Kent's scrupulously literal production, here on its third outing, is that it doesn't get in the way much. Unless you're an accident-prone soprano that is.