Tosca Puccini
Opéra National de Paris

Text is from the Opéra National de Paris website.

CANADIAN(S): Gerald Finley, Michael Colvin

IN FEW WORDS
When Giacomo Puccini saw a performance of Victorien Sardo’s play La Tosca, whilst Sarah Bernhardt was touring with it in Milan, he was immediately captivated by the power of the drama. Love, politics, sadism and religion: all these ingredients are brought together in the story of the jealous and impulsive singer Floria Tosca, who is in love with the idealistic Mario Cavaradossi in an Italy fighting for its independence. Eleven years later, in 1900, Puccini’s opera Tosca had its triumphant first performance in Rome. At the summit of his art, the composer struck a powerful note even as the curtain rose with five arresting chords evoking Scarpia, the infamous chief of police, whose desire to possess the diva knows no limits. In Pierre Audi’s production, first performed in 2014 at the Paris Opera, the oppressive shadow of a cross hovers above the stage, symbol of the collision of political and religious tyranny. An interpretation that skilfully deploys the strands of the drama and lays bare its tragic mechanisms.

Tosca
Melodramma in three acts (1900)

CREATIVE TEAM
Music : Giacomo Puccini
Libretto : Giuseppe Giacosa & Luigi Illica
Conductor : Gustavo Dudamel – (sept.), Paolo Bortolameolli – (24sept, oct.‑nov.)
Director : Pierre Audi
Set design : Christof Hetzer
Costume design : Robby Duiveman
Lighting design : Jean Kalman
Dramaturgy : Klaus Bertisch
Chorus master : Alessandro Di Stefano

CAST
Floria Tosca : Saioa Hernández (Sept.), Elena Stikhina (Oct.-Nov.)
Mario Cavaradossi : Joseph Calleja 3 > 24 Sept./11 > 26 Nov., Brian Jagde 20 Oct.> 8 Nov.
Il Barone Scarpia : Bryn Terfel 3 > 15 Sept., Alexey Markov 18 > 24 Sept., Gerald Finley 20 > 29 Oct. and 3 > 11 Nov. 2022, Roman Burdenko17 > 26 Nov.
Cesare Angelotti : Sava Vemić
Spoletta : Michael Colvin
Il Sagrestano : Renato Girolami
Sciarrone : Philippe Rouillon
Un carceriere : Christian Rodrigue Moungoungou