Act Two of the Met’s Tosca has just ended. The production doesn’t seem objectionable to me. The singers are all more than adequate. The Scarpia is relatively young and not bad-looking. That Karita Mattila looks like an older woman in a wig throws off the dynamic of their interaction. Sometimes she has a little bit of a Lucille Ball sort of appearance. If she had been my grandmother’s granddaughter, she would have been told that she walks like a longshoreman.
I was never a great fan of Zinka Milanov, but I’d have to say that Zinka Milanov was a much better Tosca.