Tosca

About the Production

Tosca is Puccini's most kinetic opera—a thriller with three acts that build inexorably toward catastrophe. This production drew on the visual language of post-war Italian cinema: Rossellini's Rome, De Sica's working-class neighborhoods, the chiaroscuro of a city under occupation.

The set abandoned the opera's traditional Roman monument locations (the Farnese Palace, Sant'Andrea della Valle, the Castel Sant'Angelo) in favor of non-descript bureaucratic spaces. Scarpia's office is a fluorescent-lit government room. The castle battlements are a rooftop. The political terror of Puccini's Rome becomes legible as something closer to the twentieth century.

Directorial Approach

The danger of Tosca in production is the star vehicle: the opera has attracted legendary singers who can make the work about their own performances rather than its story. This production insisted on ensemble playing. Tosca's psychology is shaped by her relationships—with Cavaradossi, with Scarpia, with the God she invokes and abandons.

The "Vissi d'arte" was staged against type: not a spotlight aria, but a scene of shock, Tosca motionless on the floor while the world continues around her.

Creative Team

• Conductor: Enrique Mazzola
• Set Design: David Korins
• Costume Design: Montana Levi Blanco
• Lighting Design: Duane Schuler
• Tosca: Sondra Radvanovsky
• Mario Cavaradossi: Piotr Beczała
• Baron Scarpia: Željko Lučić