HOT: Tosca at Royal Opera House, Covent Garden

My overriding impression of Puccini's glorious 'melodrama in three acts' was Jonas Kaufmann's sex appeal, which radiated even to the upper reaches of the Royal Opera House amphitheatre. Good looking, swarthy and passionate, he was the perfect Cavaradossi - besides which his voice was stunning. He even overshadowed the main character, a rather 'bouncy' Tosca who hammed up the drama to an almost comical degree (Shani told me that when a Tosca is particularly large-boned, when she throws herself to her death she has been to known bounce right back up from the mattress hidden on the stage floor).