Puccini's Tosca
Hugo de Ana (stage director), Francesco Ivan Ciampa (conductor) – With Sonya Yoncheva (Floria Tosca), Mario Cavaradossi (Vittorio Grigòlo), Roman Burdenko (Il barone Scarpia)
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Cast
Hugo de Ana — Stage director, lighting designer, set and costume design
Sonya Yoncheva — Floria Tosca
Vittorio Grigolo — Mario Cavaradossi
Roman Burdenko — Il barone Scarpia
Giorgi Manoshvili — Cesare Angelotti
Giulio Mastrototaro — Il sagrestano
Carlo Bosi — Spoletta
Nicolo Ceriani — Sciarrone
Dario Giorgelè — Un carceriere
Erika Zaha — Un pastore
Children's choir A.d’A.Mus — Chorus
Elisabetta Zucca — Children’s Chorus Master
Chorus of the Arena di Verona — Chorus
Roberto Gabbiani — Chorus Master
Program notes
In 1889, Puccini attended a play—written by Victorien Sardou and performed by the great Sarah Bernhardt—whose main character exuded theatricality. He bought the rights to this passionate drama, and after a few years' work and two operas—Manon Lescaut (1893) and La Bohème (1896)—it was Tosca's turn to be revealed to the general public. Although the work was not an immediate success, it is now widely recognized as one of opera's finest masterpieces. Sung for over a century by the greatest voices, witness Sonya Yoncheva take on the mythical role of Sarah Bernhardt, accompanied by the talented Vittorio Grigòlo and Roman Burdenko—in a superb staging at the Arena in Verona, staged by Hugo de Ana!
Rome, June 1800, painter Mario Cavaradossi comes to the aid of a political prisoner, Angelotti, hunted by the dreadful police chief Scarpia, an instrument of the authoritarian regime's arbitrary justice. While his gesture is commendable, it is not without consequences, for Scarpia, long in love with the painter's lover Floria Tosca, sees it as a means to an end. By manipulating Tosca, an opera singer, he hopes to possess her, recover Angelotti, and condemn Cavaradossi. Tosca, subjected to Scarpia's cunning assaults, soon becomes the plaything of his desires and cruelties. She manages to escape by manipulating him in turn, stabbing him as part of a clever seduction routine. Now free again, she hopes to escape with Mario, but has no idea of the cruel outcome that awaits them, and that is drawing ever closer...
