The life of the temperamental singer Floria Tosca is a jumble of love, lust and political intrigue. When her lover is imprisoned by the sadistic chief of police Scarpia, Tosca takes fate into her own hands with horrifying consequences. Chief conductor Lorenzo Viotti and director Barrie Kosky launch a three-year Puccini cycle with their take on this classic opera.
Bloodcurdling opera noir
Tosca is high-voltage music theatre abounding in chaos and danger from the opening bars. With this melodrama, written in 1900 in a provocative, bold and cinematic style, Puccini and his music stormed into the 20th century.
Free of sentimentality
Directing Tosca is a great pleasure for the Australian-German director Barrie Kosky - it was the first opera he fell deeply in love with as a boy. Under his direction, the darker sides of the opera come to the fore. Don’t expect any glamorous Roman churches, rustling velvet or sparkling pearl necklaces. Kosky concentrates solely on the psychological drama and its bloody ending. Chief conductor Lorenzo Viotti, who is a keen Puccini enthusiast, delivers a musically ‘sugar-free’ Tosca. He shakes off the traditions of interpretation and approaches the score with a fresh outlook. Viotti leads ‘his’ Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, the Chorus of Dutch National Opera and prominent soloists.
Following her sensational Salome in 2017, Swedish soprano Malin Byström returns to DNO to perform the title role in Tosca. The Mexican-American tenor Joshua Guerrero, a specialist in the Italian repertoire, guarantees a fiery interpretation of the passionate artist Mario Cavaradossi, and Armenian baritone Gevorg Hakobyan promises to deliver an energetic, yet terrifying Scarpia.
