Axelle Fanyo on the price of young love

‘Rather than searching for verismo, I am fascinated by what this opera owes to a form of tragic and sacred theatre. Hence, perhaps, our need to move not towards an opulent naturalism but, at times, towards stylization, the imagination of the altarpiece, the theatricality of the mystery.’

The adventurous stage director Florent Siaud was describing his recent new production for the Opéra de Compiègne at the Théâtre Impérial in an interview with Classique News on 9 November 2023. And what opera was he discussing? Here’s something else he said about it in a promotional introduction earlier last year to help you guess: ‘In this show, we are not quite in Rome in 1800… Here, no overwhelming architecture or imperial furniture, but vast veils that float on all sides, between poetic oxygen and tragic asphyxiation’. So: Tosca, of course.

For the reasons described above, Siaud has created an especially experimental take on the opera which presents an almost surrealistically symbolic picture of love, power and blackmail that exists in human beings in many situations – not just in the Rome of 1800. These days we are accustomed to revisionist productions in opera, but for his interpretation Siaud doesn’t rethink the work per se – instead he aims to present Tosca to his public as an experience of inner contemplation rather than outer action: almost like a dream situation. Kabuki style décor and contemporary costume co-exist as a duality of realism and fantasy and instead of the physical impact of Puccini’s vast orchestra, there is the intimacy of a chamber group of players mingling with the voices.

The small orchestra may raise eyebrows, but Siaud’s reason chimes with his original concept of presenting the opera in a manner, ‘not towards an opulent naturalism but, at times, towards stylization, the imagination of the altarpiece’. There is also the practical advantage the small scale affords for touring – and indeed on the 28 March it can be seen in the 500-seat Grand Theatre of Centre des bords de Marne à Le Perreux-sur-Marne, and then on 4 April in the more spacious Théâtre de Rungis. Another valuable benefit has arisen for the casting of the famously demanding principal role of Floria Tosca – the young opera star caught in a web of intrigue when she is manipulated by the sadistic chief of police Vitellio Scarpia as he lusts after her while blackmailing her to give away secret information held by her lover, painter and political revolutionary Mario Cavaradossi.

©Capucine de Chocqueuses

Fast-rising young soprano flair Axelle Fanyo (pictured above) takes the role of Tosca. She explains: ‘The considerably reduced size orchestra in this production is the reason I said “yes” to singing Tosca now, at this stage in my career. It gives me the perfect way to start performing this role. It’s a huge, heavy part, and it poses a great danger for a young singer if she takes it on too soon – yet we must not forget that Tosca herself is a young woman, and so here is an opportunity to become immersed in the part in a particularly appropriate way at what I think is the right moment with my technique at my age. I know that I can soon sing the part with a full-size orchestra in a big theatre, but this smaller format gives me a condition where I can search for more colours to develop in the voice before singing Tosca at full scale. This is important for me as you really do need to find in your voice all the very wide range of colours Puccini has written in this role before you can perform it as it needs to be sung.’

And one of the strongest challenges for the soprano is giving Tosca a youthful colour while yet projecting her intensely dramatic character. ‘The big confrontation with Scarpia in Act Two exemplifies this. It shows how young Tosca is. She just has no idea how to handle the situation until she is spontaneously impelled to do the worst thing ever and kill him. When you are young and feel you don’t have any more options you do something extreme like this – something completely out of character. At the same time, this murder is, in a way, inevitable – it’s a kind of unpremeditated reflex act because she knows deep down inside that as long as Scarpia is alive she and Cavaradossi will never be safe. By the time we come towards the end of Act 2, Floria Tosca is someone else, another person from who she was when she came on stage earlier on in the act.’

But – what has not changed is her all-consuming devoted love for Cavaradossi: which in a sense has now been the unexpected destruction of the most feared terroriser in Rome. ‘I think Tosca loves Cavaradossi in a way that is just a woman’s. I don’t think a man can really love quite in this way. I am not one bit into the gender arguments that, “women are like this, men are like that”, but I feel that in this opera Tosca loves Cavaradossi as a woman who will give everything for her beloved, to the extent of doing what she would never normally think she would be able to do. That is her power and it’s the fascination of her personality for me: that she goes against her deeply religious feelings, that she even commits a murder, all because of the indestructible love she has for Cavaradossi – even though at the end of the First Act she was ready to hate him after Scarpia had falsely induced her to suspect his fidelity!’