Mr Evil steals the show

Feature films of opera are a curious survivor in an age when it is comparatively easy to make a visual record of a stage production. They have the potential to look more lavish and realistic than anything shot in a theatre - though striving for realism is perhaps foolhardy when your characters are bellowing arias into each other's faces. The trouble with them has always been the impossibility of recording the singing on set.

A form of miming is therefore necessary and, in his first opera film, French director Benoît Jacquot appears never to have come to terms with the inevitability that this will sometimes look false. His sound-track was pre-recorded for CD release by EMI, and he inserts black-and-white footage of the sessions to remind the viewer of the artifice. It seems terribly like offering an excuse.

The chief frustration is that his film needs no such pleas for tolerance. Using the largest studios in Europe to recreate the Roman locations, Jacquot presents Puccini's rampant melodrama in straightforward but vivid terms. Sets and costumes are opulent and handsome without being overblown.

The project would not have come about without the money-magnet presence of tenor Roberto Alagna and soprano Angela Gheorghiu as the lovers Cavaradossi and Tosca. Married in real life, they are currently opera's most glamorous attractions (just try getting tickets for them in La Rondine, currently at the Royal Opera). Neither is found wanting in terms of singing or screen acting, but the show is stolen by bass-baritone Ruggero Raimondi as their enemy Scarpia, the chief of police. A veteran of opera films (he was Don Giovanni for Joseph Losey), Raimondi sizzles with tight-lipped evil.

Without Jacquot's alienation devices this film would impress as a sensibly handled visual narrative to accompany a stirring performance (conducted with authority and passion by incoming Covent Garden music director Antonio Pappano). The insertions are irritations, but Puccini has suffered worse from directors in the opera house and triumphed nevertheless - as he does here.

Tosca
Cert: certPG