The curtain rises, and the stage is bathed in the light of a thousand candles. Stage director and designer Michiel Dijkema’s spectacular vision plays off of Puccini’s music, drawing the audience into the fickle worlds of love and power, church and state in Rome in 1800. Puccini’s Tosca at the Oper Leipzig is a suspense-filled crime drama, and a true celebration of the voice!
No other opera is so anchored in the annals of time as Puccini’s Tosca. The action takes place in Rome at the end of the 18th century, where spiritual and secular powers meet. It’s a striking power play between the church state and the police state, so to speak. The drama takes place in architecturally stark locations that are still the familiar sights in the Eternal City today: the Sant’Andrea della Valle church, the Palazzo Farnese, and the Castel Sant’Angelo. Within these walls, Puccini delves ever further into the depths of realism, driving his protagonists into ever more acute situations. With great pathos, Puccini plays perfectly with the spectrum of emotions, allowing the listener to sympathize with Tosca, the celebrated opera diva, whose love for Cavaradossi is doomed by the surrounding political drama at play.