New York is ready for Karita Mattila’s bold Tosca

Karita Mattila

print this

The Metropolitan Opera in New York is to open its 2009-2010 season with a new production of Giacomo Puccini’s opera Tosca early on Tuesday morning Finnish time. The new production is built around the acclaimed Finnish soprano Karita Mattila, who is to sing in the title role.
     
By the standards of the conservative Metropolitan Opera, director Luc Bondy’s production will be bold, featuring sadomasochism, bare skin, torture, an attempted rape, homicides, and suicides.
      Baritone George Gagnidze has been engaged to sing the role of Scarpia, replacing the previously announced Finnish bass-baritone Juha Uusitalo, who has withdrawn from the production due to illness.
      Billboards all over New York show Mattila bare-footed in a dress with a low-cut neckline, ready to jump towards her death in the final scene of the opera.
      General Manager Peter Gelb, Music Director James Levine, and Mattila compare Tosca to a thriller and Alfred Hitchcock’s films, and the staging contributes to the impression.
     
Some opera lovers have been wondering the suitability of a blonde Nordic soprano for the title role of the most Italian opera in the world.
      It is true that Mattila’s title role of Manon Lescaut was a great success at the Metropolitan Opera. But the role of Tosca is different, as every opera fan remembers Maria Callas’s recording from 1953 and numerous other performances of Tosca.
     
However, Karita Mattila is one of the most successful contemporary sopranos, which is why she is being compared to all the great Toscas on record, including the glamorous Romania-born opera star Angela Gheorghiu, as well as Maria Callas, Renata Tebald, Leontyne Price, and some others.
      Besides, she is going the extra mile to disguise her Nordic roots - a dark wig is not enough; Mattila will be donning brown contact lenses to cover her naturally blue eyes, as she did in at the National Opera in Helsinki in 2006. 
      The first impressions of Mattila’s Tosca at the Met will be reported by Helsingin Sanomat on Tuesday morning.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Juha Uusitalo and Karita Mattila performing Salome at Metropolitan Opera (23.9.2008)
  Karita Mattila on Ondine Records

Links:
  The Metropolitan Opera of New York

Helsingin Sanomat