Opera on Location

After their huge success with La Bohème at Graves Gallery in 2014, Opera on Location return to one of their favourite composers and bring Giacomo Puccini’s much loved classic Tosca to life at the recently refurbished Abbeydale Picture House.

Written in 1900, Tosca is undoubtedly one of the world’s greatest operas and is considered Puccini’s first exploration into realism. Focussing on aspects of real life, Tosca draws upon human emotions including love, jealously, anger, loyalty and loss to create its heartbreaking story. All accompanied with the ever stunning music of Puccini, it is impossible to deny the sheer majesty of this opera.

Bringing Tosca to prohibition-era America, this production sees Tosca and her lover Cavaradossi caught in the middle of gang warfare. Whilst trying to protect his friend Angelotti, Cavaradossi puts himself in danger and is hunted down by the malevolent and corrupt detective; Scarpia. Knowing Cavaradossi will never betray his friendship, Scarpia focuses his attention on Tosca and uses his position to blackmail and psychologically torment the young singer until she tells him what he wants to know. After bargaining all that she has to save her lover, Tosca is forced to do unspeakable things to make sure that both she and Cavaradossi survive the night, but will it be enough?