WA Opera’s Tosca at His Majesty’s Theatre a winter wallow with Maija Kovalevska, Paul O’Neill and Warwick Fyfe

Fatal attraction and brutal oppression are the twin engines of Puccini’s visceral “verismo” opera Tosca, elements WA Opera captures decisively with a trio of sublime principals at His Majesty’s Theatre this week and next.

Add a talented support cast, well-schooled chorus and deftly directed orchestra, amid striking design and costumes, for a winter treat to wallow in.

Soprano Maija Kovalevska’s Tosca, an opera singer within an opera, holds centre stage with an effortless presence and voice, rolling instantly from infatuation to jealousy and back in naturally nuanced interplay with her lover, Cavaradossi; a seamless partnership with tenor Paul O’Neill at the heart of a gloriously tragic affair.

Their opening intimate duet rises and falls with energy and clarity; their dalliance in a church tempting fate — if not God — to intervene.

Fate befalls them in the intrigue between Cavaradossi and his rebellious friend Angelotti — bass Jake Bigwood larger than life in orange prison overalls — whose sister becomes an unwitting pawn after Cavaradossi paints her into a mural that tweaks the suspicions of Tosca and police chief Scarpia.

Warwick Fyfe’s Scarpia is the dark underbelly of the piece, somewhere between Nosferatu and an ageing Mussolini, injecting as much menace into a single line as many would struggle to find in a whole aria; even with a winter chill to dampen his rich baritone.

His counterpoint to the choir and congregation in the Te Deum unleashes the first charge of raw emotional power: “Tosca, you make me forget God,” he intones as the stage erupts in praise and worship — an awful resonance unleashed in towering octaves before the first curtain.

Graceful strains in the orchestra, never missing a beat of Rebecca Lang’s baton, open the second act with a glimpse at the banality of evil; Scarpia preparing dinner attended by sinister henchman Sciarrone — a crisp and precise portrayal by baritone Lachlann Lawton — who is despatched to entrap Tosca with Cavaradossi as bait.

Matthew Lester’s bumbling police minion Spoletta injects a touch of almost Keystone Cops humour, but laughter is shortlived when Cavaradossi’s torture begins to reel in Tosca.

From here the star-crossed lovers tug ever more tightly at the heart strings.

O’Neill is compelling as the idealist, romantic artist, channelling pain and desperation under duress, while Kovalevska’s descent from defiance to despair is a picture of passion and pathos.

Their dilemma unfolds in three enthralling arias.

As Tosca crumbles in the face of Scarpia’s vice-like grip — “Tears and hatred have excited my passion,” he declaims — she nonetheless summons beauty from the very depths.

“Vissi d’arte, vissi d’amore” — I lived for art, I lived for love — her existential cry infuses every corner of the theatre with soaring, poignant phrases dying to silence then rising again; lyrical and limpid.

A crucifix hangs in silhouette over the scene, attended by sweet strings, before Tosca strikes to the jugular and kidneys with the precision of a practised assassin; Scarpia’s blood matching her crimson gown.

Washing her hands like Pilate or Lady Macbeth, she delivers judgment — “Once all Rome was afraid of him” — the orchestra subsiding like a dying storm as the curtain falls.

A cameo from soprano Jillian Halleron, a maid polishing the sterile cell floor, in “Io de Sospiri” — I give you Sighs — flips the scene to Cavaradossi’s fateful dawn; bells tolling and strings rising to the strains of his last meditation.

Velvet clarinet leads in O’Neill’s tortured musing: infinite tenderness among tears of regret for romance cut short, and the defiant irony that never before did he love life so much: “Tanta la vita!”

Yet the rollercoaster pitches again as Tosca emerges with the grim truth; triumph and tragedy mixed.

Their inspiring duet, “O Dolci Mani” — Such Gentle Hands — rings out in octaves of devotion and hope, yet the final reveal, the place of execution, returns to the stark walls of the church where betrayal began.

In the end all is lost; with plangent orchestral chords their bitter funeral note.

Tosca is at His Majesty’s Theatre until July 23. www.waopera.asn.au