The Polish tenor will sing Cavaradossi for the first time in his life next week at the Vienna State Opera.
Sondra Radvanovsky will sing the title role. Thomas Hampson is Scarpia. Marco Armiliato conducts.
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Hampson’s Scarpia to Bartoli’s Norma. Can’t be taken seriously. But at least it’s not Beczala in the title role (which wouldn’t surprise me were it true considering the sad but comical state of the art these days).
Beczala will survive nicely. About Hampson, all he has to do is “act well and convincing”, and maybe recite most of his lines.
(I’m surprised Domingo has not been cast as Scarpia!) 😉
Beczala seems determined to ruin the remains of what was once a fine lyric tenor. We have seen it many times with Grigolo, and more recently with Florez.
Hampson as Scarpia is well past his BB date. Sandra Radvanovsky sang Tosca early in her career. Does this mean that she will leave the belcanto rep alone?
I thought his good taste was keeping him away from this
tawdry little opera, apparently not.
So most of the great tenors in the past had bad taste. Beczała is in good company 🙂
Having a beautiful tenor voice doe not preclude
a tenor having bad taste.They mostly sing what
sells to the gallery .In this dreary little opera the
subject matter is” getting laid ” and all the candles and crosses and slow exits cannot change getting laid gone wrong..I read somewhere that when a certain Tosca jumped into the river which is impossible she landed
on a trampoline & bounced back up in full view of the audience and the second time up she waved to the audience which waved back. Now
if that was written into the operaI could be persuaded to go ,but alas it is not .
Toi! Toi! Toi!
To the naysayers: Voices change all the time. Mr. Beczala is 52 years old, so if he wants to, and can, sing a couple of Cavaradossis in Vienna, well, good luck to him. It won’t ruin his career. Maybe he can bring some of his lyric qualities to the role (to be honest, I’ve never liked “Tosca” very much). He was a wonderfully lyric Lohengrin in Bayreuth last summer. I really can’t speak for Mr. Beczala, but I doubt that he wants to sing Lensky into his dotage!