Celebrated American soprano Catherine Malfitano's classically inspired production of Tosca returns to the Royal Opera House for another season. The gripping thriller portrays an intense conflict of love, lust, vengeance and violence whose central characters make up a complex and ill-fated triangle: the naïve idealism of the libertarian painter Cavaradossi, the state-sanctioned sadism of Scarpia and, caught between them, Floria Tosca, the beautiful singer whose ability to inspire passion is her fatal undoing.
Set against the backdrop of Rome in June 1800 at the time of Napoleon’s invasion of Italy, the beautifully created designs evoke the political world of control and suspicion - the pageantry of church ritual, the darkness of a brooding study and a hidden torture chamber and the false optimism of the light of a Roman dawn.
Claire Rutter assumes the role of the temperamental diva, alongside Gwyn Hughes Jones as Cavaradossi and Anthony Michaels-Moore as the sadistic police chief Scarpia. Puccini's dark and haunting score constantly winds up the tension under the acclaimed conducting of Stephen Lord.
Running Time
2 hours 50 minutes
Address
Royal Opera House
Bow Street
Covent Garden
London
WC2E 9DD
Travel
Nearest Tube: Covent Garden
Nearest Rail: Charing Cross
Bus Routes: 11, 88, 168, 176
Parking: NCP at Drury Lane and Shelton Street. There are 4 spaces for orange badge holders on Bow Street and 3 on Floral Street.
Access
The venue is fully accessible to wheelchair users. There are spaces for wheelchair users and transfer seating is available.
A Brahler infra-red assisted-hearing facility is available in the main auditorium and the Linbury Studio Theatre. Collect headsets from the cloakroom in the main foyer.
Guide dogs are allowed into the auditorium and staff are available to dog sit if required.
Book Tickets for Tosca
