Tosca, Royal Opera House review ★★★★★

For many lovers of Puccini's greatest opera, Tosca, and of the Royal Opera House's superlative production by Jonathan Kent, this is dream casting. In the title role, Welsh-born soprano Natalya Romaniw and, as her tormentor Baron Scarpia, her countryman, baritone Bryn Terfel.

In the 18-year history of this landmark production, Toscas and Scarpias have been and gone, and many have been very fine indeed. But there is something very special about these two working together. Friends off-stage and performers who have made their musical journeys in tandem, Romaniw and Terfel are the ones you want to see in a production that people will still talk about in years to come.

Natalya Romaniw as Tosca and Bryn Terfel as Scarpia. Photo: Clive Barda

Their toxic on-stage chemistry flares between Floria Tosca, an opera singer in the Rome of 1800, and the chief of police who pursues her and her rebellious lover with equal venom. Scarpia's idea of womanising delights in sadism, not romance.

Trapping Tosca within earshot of the torturing of her artist lover, Cavaradossi, Scarpia bullies her until she snaps. The struggle between Romaniw's elfin Tosca and Terfel's towering Scarpia is one of unequals, but Tosca is powered by love, not hate, and that gives her the thrilling edge.

Terfel was in the original cast of Kent's production in 2006 and Tosca is his home from home. Today his Scarpia voice is patinated with grunts and growls that propel it into the elusive space between singing and acting, that few artists reach. This is an exciting place to take an audience that is hanging on every note and word of a consummate performer, and these are the deliberate imperfections that help draw a deeply flawed character.

Act One is set in Sant' Andrea della Valle. Photo: Clive Barda

For her part, Romaniw's Tosca has grown in strength since her Covent Garden debut in the role in 2022, and the emotional range of a character who is by turns coquetish, steely, loyal and conflicted is expressed in a voice that is rich with colour. Her most eagerly awaited aria, 'Vissi d'arte' ('I have lived for art, I have lived for love…') gives private voice to her bewildered inner thoughts, its pianissimo opening sung upstage.

Both Romaniw and Terfel have this great technical gift for singing upstage – turned away, with their backs to the audience – with no loss of volume.

Evil Baron Scarpia nearly always outdoes principled painter and activist Mario Cavaradossi for dramatic impact. Villains make the best theatre. But tenor SeokJong Baek's Cavaradossi sings his hymn to life 'E lucevan le stelle' with heartstopping loveliness. Formerly a baritone, he brings the warmth of his lower voice to this impassioned paean in the final act, when the stars fade and the sun rises on the day he expects to die.

Natalya Romaniw as Tosca and Seokjong Baek as Cavaradossi. Photo: Clive Barda

Thanks to the late Paul Brown's beautiful and faithful set, the landmarks of Rome unfold before our eyes – the complex church of Sant'Andrea della Valle, where Cavaradossi paints and worship begins, the threatening Palazzo Farnese with its oppressive decor, and the battlements of the Tiber-side Castel Sant'Angelo, one vast angel winging hovering overhead.

The vision of Jonathan Kent has not been dimmed by the passing of this production from one generation to the next. Each conductor brings their own spin, and here Eun Sun Kim, making an impressive Covent Garden debut, explores the full range of Puccini's score, from the tender chimes and introspection of a few strings to the armoured assault vehicle of the full orchestra in the most violent passages.

Kent's Tosca remains a must-see classic that sets the benchmark for all others, and one to collect at all costs. Take a newcomer, take an established fan, but go!

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Tosca is sung in Italian with English surtitles. Further performances are on 6, 8, 11, 13 Dec. Natalya Romaniw sings the title role on 6, 8 Dec; Chiara Isotton sings Tosca on 11, 13 Dec. Click here for tickets