Ticket information
Booking Confirmation by email
Ticket pick-up at the evening box office
This production
Run time: 2hrs 45min, 2 intermissions
Sung in ITALIAN
Subtitles in English, German, Italian, French, Russian, Japanese, Spanish, Chinese
German soprano Anja Harteros is the passionate title diva, opposite charismatic tenor Massimo Giordano as her lover, the idealistic painter Mario Cavaradossi. Baritone Luca Salsi is the menacing Baron Scarpia, the evil chief of police who employs brutal tactics to ensnare both criminals and sexual conquests. Pier Giorgio Morandi conducts the electrifying score, which features some of Puccini’s most memorable melodies.
Giacomo Puccini (1858–1924) was enormously popular in his lifetime, and his mature operas remain at the core of today’s repertoire. An operatic composer with a most original gift for lyrical melody, Puccini possessed a masterful technical savoir-faire and an extraordinary sense of the theatre.
Puccini’s librettists Giuseppe Giacosa (1847–1906) and Luigi Illica (1857–1919) based their text on Victorien Sardou’s play La Tosca, which had enjoyed years of international success with the great actress, Sarah Bernhardt. It was a major feat of adaptation: the original’s five acts and twenty-two characters were reduced to three acts and nine characters in the completed opera.