Meet The Mets, part deux

The best scene in "Quantum of Solace" — the follow-up to Daniel Craig's debut as James Bond — finds 007 on the trail of Eurotrash nogoodniks as they plot ecological mayhem while taking in a production of Giacomo Puccini's "Tosca."

Once the bad guys realize Bond is on to their game, cleverly played out via earpieces as they seemingly relish Puccini, they begin leaving the opera house in not-so-subtle droves.

"Well," sniffs one, "'Tosca' isn't for everyone."

Actually, "Tosca" is for everyone, which is why The Metropolitan Opera chose it to open its season and why two theaters at White Plains' City Center 15: Cinema De Lux were packed recently for the encore presentation of "The Met: Live in HD" transmission. I imagine the theaters at New Rochelle's New Roc City 18 & IMAX, which also participate in The Met's simulcasts of select operas each season, were similarly filled. (Those theaters will no doubt be teeming once again this Saturday as The Met presents another Puccini chestnut, "Turandot," pictured here.)


Why "Tosca"? First, it's an opera about an opera singer — the jealous, foolhardy but always loving Floria Tosca, who finds herself caught between her lover, the painter/rebel Cavaradossi, and Scarpia, the cruelly sensual police chief, amid the majesty of Napoleonic Rome.

Secondly, "Tosca" is quintessential Puccini in its outpouring of luscious, haunting melody. (One patron left the theater whistling "E lucevan le stelle," Cavaradossi's theme.) At the same time, "Tosca" arguably represents Puccini's most complete use of the Wagnerian leitmotif. Here the examples include a running figure that, at the opera's end, takes us all the way to the top of the prison castle of Sant' Angelo, along with our doomed heroine.

So "Tosca" has great music and great psychological drama. Yet it was roundly booed on opening night, in part because Luc Bondy's sterile production had replaced Franco Zeffirelli's architecturally sumptuous recreation of neoclassical Rome.

Audience members in White Plains last week seemed to mirror the opening-night crowd. They applauded the singers — Finnish soprano Karita Matilla (Tosca, pictured here), Argentine tenor Marcelo Álvarez (Cavaradossi) and Georgian baritone George Gagnidze as Scarpia. But they were divided, sometimes within themselves, about the merits of the production, which mixes Empire costumes with modern furnishings and removes much of the Roman Catholic ritual that is integral to the opera and its heroine. (That's the wonderful thing about the "Live in HD" transmissions: There's plenty of time during the intermissions for coffee and conversation.)

For me, the fatal flaw in Bondy's production is not that he's ignored the sense of place that is central to "Tosca" or much of its Catholic sensibility — though these are certainly problems. No, the coup de grace is that he's nullified Puccini's psychological acuity, this despite the singers praising Bondy's penetrating insights during the earthy backstage interviews with charming mezzo-soprano Susan Graham.

One example is particularly glaring: Bondy has done away with the moment in which Tosca — having murdered Scarpia for torturing her lover and making sex the price of his freedom — places candles and a crucifix around his body. (Puccini used this to contrast Tosca's ultimate religious devotion with Scarpia's hypocritical piety.)

Still, Bondy has to fill in the musical interlude, so he has Tosca stare out the window and then recline on a couch where she fans herself while she presumably contemplates life, Hamlet-like.

Question: If you had just impulsively knifed a sadist on the order of the Nazis whose henchmen could return at any moment, would you sit around, or would you grab the weapon, your belongings and the letter of safe conduct Scarpia promised you and your lover and hightail it out of there?

If Bondy were so interested in a modern approach to "Tosca," why not update it to Mussolini's Rome?

The problem with retelling operas freshly lies not in the idea of reinterpretation itself but in making appropriate choices. Bondy's production has one brilliant moment — the cinematic ending, which I won't give away since PBS will be broadcasting the simulcast later this season.

Ironically, the "Tosca" transmission included an interview with director Bartlett Sher, who did The Met's fabulous "Il Barbiere di Siviglia" and who's taking a Kafkaesque look at Jacques Offenbach's "Les Contes d'Hoffmann" (Dec. 19). Kafka, "Tales of Hoffmann": It's a pairing that makes sense.

Regardless of the production, "Live in HD" remains one of the best and cheapest dates around. For about $20, plus the price of parking and popcorn, you get to go to The Met without having to drive to The Met. It's a tough ticket, but there are often encores.

Apart from "Turandot" and "Hoffmann," there are five remaining simulcasts — Richard Strauss' "Der Rosenkavalier" (Jan. 9), with the aforementioned Susan Graham as Renée Fleming's boy toy; Georges Bizet's "Carmen" (Jan. 16), with Elina Garanca and Roberto Alagna; Giuseppe Verdi's "Simon Boccanegra," with Placido Domingo (Feb. 6); Ambroise Thomas' "Hamlet," with Simon Keenlyside and Natalie Dessay (March 27); and Gioacchino Rossini's "Armida," also with Fleming (May 1). www.metopera.org/HDLive

Photos courtesy of The Metropolitan Opera.