One moment the singer Floria Tosca is standing on the stage, next moment she is the key figure in a deadly political intrigue sparked by jealousy and the craving for power. Giacomo Puccini’s thriller continues to captivate audiences to this day. Helsinki presents an audacious new production of this classic directed by Christof Loy.
“Vissi d’arte, vissi d’amore” – “I have lived for art, I have lived for love,” sings the despairing opera star Floria Tosca. Just minutes later, the celebrated singer becomes a murderess as she tries to free herself and her lover, the artist Mario Cavaradossi, from the clutches of Rome’s tyrannical police chief Scarpia. Will the lovers be able to flee this corrupt system? The dramatic denouement is set on the ramparts of the Castel d’Angelo.
“What Tosca had imagined could happen only on stage suddenly becomes a reality,” says Christof Loy, director of the new production at the Finnish National Opera in Helsinki. “Tosca loses control, and she must face a reality that she could never have envisioned. Everything around her turns into a nightmare.”Giacomo Puccini’s opera that premiered in Rome in 1900 to this day counts among the great classics of the genre. Again and again, audiences are swept away by the intensity of the tale it tells. The previous production was twenty years old and after over a hundred performances, Helsinki was ready for a new Tosca. Award-winning German director Christof Loy promises a new and original vision of Puccini’s masterpiece. Lithuanian soprano Aušrinė Stundytė has the title role for the 2018/19 season, Italian tenor Andrea Carè plays the artist Cavaradossi and Finnish baritone Tuomas Pursio the power-hungry Scarpia. The conductor is Patrick Fournillier.