Admin

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Stage director

Boleslaw Barlog

Set designer

Stage director (+2)

Filippo Sanjust

Costume designer

Chorusmaster

Chorusmaster (+2)

Thomas Richter

Chorusmaster (+3)

Christian Lindhorst

Orchestra

Orchester der Deutschen Oper Berlin

Chorus

Choir of the Deutsche Oper Berlin

Children's Chorus of the German Opera of Berlin

Conductor

Giampaolo Bisanti

Soprano (+2)

Elena Stikhina

Floria Tosca

Tenor (+1)

Martin Muehle

Mario Cavaradossi

Baritone (+3)

Lucio Gallo

Baron Scarpia

Kyle Miller

Cesare Angelotti

Bass-baritone (+4)

Padraic Rowan

The sacristan

Tenor (+2)

Thomas Cilluffo

Spoletta

Baritone (+1)

Geon Kim

A jailer

Youngkwang Oh

Sciarrone

Conductor (+1)

Valerio Galli

Soprano (+3)

Sondra Radvanovsky

Fabio Sartori

Baritone (+4)

Stephen Marsh

Bass-baritone (+2)

Jared Werlein

Baritone

Ariunbaatar Ganbaatar

Tenor (+5)

Jörg Schörner

Joel Allison

Baritone (+5)

Matthias Henneberg

As in all operas by Puccini, TOSCA is an illustration of how human attentiveness and pleasures of the palate can be mutually dependent if the composer’s artistic intentions become a benchmark for directorial interpretation. Puccini’s humane attentiveness is essentially dependent on an outcry and/or a sense of resignation. The pity inherent in his music does not content itself with abstract gestures; it wants to unsettle, to bring about change. Out of the “small things” named by Puccini as the source of his inspiration and the focus of his music “big things” grow – as long as we want them. Puccini’s choice of material owes something, directly or indirectly, to the spirit of Zola, Gorki and Hauptmann, and the link between that material and his compositional style places him likewise as a direct descendant of Verdi and an exponent of verismo. He was also known as an admirer of Wagner, although a Wagner imitator he assuredly was not.

It was more a case of a personal connection based on selected achievements of both composers. Grappling with the bundled subtleties of harmony and nuances of instrumentation, he still uncovered a voice from the orchestral cross-hatching and gave it an accompagnato that was considerably more fractured and refined than the radical and laconic Verdi was wonted to do. This is also a reflection of the aesthetic themes of TOSCA. The music exudes brutality, intelligence and exactitude but also tenderness, sentimentality and a dream-like quality. Puccini set great store on musical precision, social awareness, a tactical heroism, the poetics of the seemingly hum-drum, the contrast between aloofness and passionate involvement, and following his true north.

Scarpia, the police chief, Floria Tosca, a singer, and Cavaradossi, a painter, are all bent on achieving their own personal forms of liberty. Scarpia’s is all about asserting his idea of power; Cavaradossi’s is that of the freedom fighter seeking systemic change; Tosca’s is the release that comes with private, straightforward, unbounded love. At a pivotal time of major upheaval these urges assume a heightened significance. Depending on the stance that we see ourselves and Puccini in at that moment in time, TOSCA either remains a grisly love story or ends up as a portent of “freedom”. In any event, each of the three very different protagonists pay for their part in this triangular clinch with their lives. There is nothing redemptive about their deaths, which are grim, violent and definitive.

Bideoak