Tosca by Puccini, Sun 08 Dec 2019, From (2019/2020), Directed by Stanislav Gaudasinsky, Conductor Peter Feranec, Valentin Bogdanov, Mikhailovsky Theater, Saint Petersburg, Russia

Tosca is one of the greatest achievements in the history of opera. It is a composition of rare beauty and emotional force. Giacomo Puccini took inspiration from a play written especially for Sarah Bernhardt by Victorien Sardou. With its rapid pace of events, the action develops like the sudden release of a spring. Floria Tosca is a celebrated singer and a beautiful, passionate woman. She succumbs to her emotions easily, be it love, jealousy, or rage. Caught at the very centre of a political intrigue, Tosca falls victim to the manipulations of the treacherous Scarpia and unwittingly ruins her beloved, the artist Mario Cavaradossi. Puccini’s passionate, expressive, and profound music brings equilibrium to the heightened pathos of the literary original and speaks directly to the listener’s heart. Audiences empathize with the protagonists as if they have always known them. This production of Tosca at the Mikhailovsky Theatre is performed as its composer intended, convincingly and considerately following the drama of the music.