A magnificent, traditional, fully-staged version of Puccini’s powerful opera Tosca, set against the dramatic landscape of Rome and the Napoleonic Wars and the corrupt Italian regime of that time, comes to the Congress Theatre, Eastbourne on Thursday 4th February.
Opera & Ballet International proudly presents this Ellen Kent production starring Vladimir Dragos as Scarpia with international sopranos Maria Tonina and Alyona Kistenyova alternating as Tosca, together with a highly praised opera chorus and full orchestra.
Directed as a Gothic, Victorian horror story, Puccini’s Tosca is an epic tale of true love and treachery featuring some of opera’s best-known music, and is based on a play by Victorien Sardou. Once described as a “shabby little shocker” it tells of Floria Tosca’s true love for artist Mario Cavaradossi. Tosca is forced to enter into a deal with the Chief of Police Baron Scarpia, in order to save Cavaradossi, her lover, from execution. Scarpia’s price is Tosca’s seduction, but she cannot go through with it, and in desperation she stabs Scarpia to death. Cavaradossi is executed and, realising all is lost, Tosca throws herself from the battlements to her death.
This most popular of operas, sung in Italian with English surtitles, features the tender and moving arias Recondita Armonia, Vissi d’Arte and E Lucevan le Stelle, and is a heady mixture of true love, suffering and deceit, with two of the best roles for tenor and soprano, plus a pure evil villain as the baritone.
Puccini’s Tosca appears at the Congress Theatre on Thursday 4th February at 7.30pm. Tickets, priced from £22 – £34, are available online at www.eastbournetheatres.co.uk or through the box Office on 01323 412000.
