"After a summer of institutional mishaps to raise the pulse of the most hardened spin doctor, the Royal Ballet and Opera's new season was audible far beyond the venue. Shame on you, chanted protesters over a powerful PA system outside. Some, standing amid yellow and blue flags, simply held placards. Art is not neutral, read one. And indeed it isn't, though opera's entanglements in international geopolitics are rarely as visible as at Covent Garden in recent months."
"As the first collaboration between Mears the organisation's director of opera and its new music director Jakub Hrusa, as well as RBO's first new production of Tosca in almost 20 years, this was always going to be a high-stakes season opening. The house lights were dimmed only a fraction of a second before Hrusa landed Puccini's opening orchestral chords, gleaming and bottom-heavy. The curtain rises on a monumental chapel interior: walls of white marble, a heap of rubble and broken pews on one side, Cavaradossi's painting-in-progress on the other."
Protesters gathered outside Covent Garden, chanting and displaying placards and flags in response to the casting of Russian soprano Anna Netrebko. The demonstrations dispersed by the first interval, and audience reaction inside was enthusiastic, with roars of approval for popular numbers. The production marks the first collaboration between Oliver Mears and music director Jakub Hrusa and is the Royal Opera's first new Tosca in almost 20 years. The staging sets Rome as a 20th-century war zone with a monumental marble chapel, rubble, and a stained torture chamber. Scarpia is portrayed as an oleaginous CEO, and Hrusa's orchestral opening was gleaming and bottom-heavy.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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