Not a lost voice, not a broken leg in sight. Could this really be Covent Garden? Well, who knows what happened when Angela Gheorghiu, replacing Deborah Voigt, leapt over the Castel Sant’Angelo parapet. One thing is for sure, though: the return of Gheorghiu and Bryn Terfel (pictured) to the roles they made so much their own when Jonathan Kent’s production of Tosca was new in 2006 leads to an evening of secure satisfaction the like of which has not been experienced at the Royal Opera for some weeks.

Stephen Barlow now directs this latest revival, and the body language and movement — from the tiniest details of Jeremy White’s nicely observed Sacristan, to that of La Tosca herself — is quivering with volatile life and animation. Gheorghiu herself is an inimitable Tosca: at one moment playful and tremulous as a shy and vulnerable young animal; at another as commanding and complete a diva as the role she so entirely inhabits.

The quicksilver that Puccini wrote into her voice is there from the start, in half-tones of flirtation and uncertainty. Her Vissi d’arte mingles soft undertones with a glowing inner energy that is never driven. And her final narration of her murder of the evil Scarpia is as thrilling as the act itself.

The chemistry between her and Terfel’s Scarpia is palpable. You can feel his warm breath of sensuality on her cheek in church; you can sense his voice and his body being strengthened by her suffering. Within his voice, words slide in insinuation, and triumph in their tautness of rhythm and fierceness of focus. Terfel’s magnificent command of the stage — and of the expressive breadth of the role — is total.

With both Gheorghiu (her fellow Romanian Nelly Miricioiu takes over as Tosca on July 18) and Terfel on top form , it’s just a pity that Marcello Giordani is a weak-link Cavaradossi. The Sicilian is ardent and idiomatic of inflection; but his tenor makes heavy weather of every vocal gear change, and stretches like tired elastic when under pressure.

The French-Canadian conductor Jacques Lacombe, making his Royal Opera debut, is supportive in pacing his music, and conducts with flair and an eye for detail throughout. He and Barlow draw sharp character from the vividly cast cameos, such as Martyn Hill’s lean and hungry Spoletta, Kostas Smoriginas’s fervent Angelotti, and Matthew Hargreaves making his Royal Opera debut with a dark Sciarrone.

Box office: 020-7304 4000.

Further performances on July 14, 16 and 18 (Nelly Miricioiu)

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