Follow
North East Theatre Guide on Twitter at https://twitter.com/NETheatreGuide
and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/NETheatreGuide
Puccini's TOSCA
Sunderland Empire
Thursday
24th March 2016
Opera & Ballet International proudly presents an Ellen Kent
production with international soloists, highly praised chorus and full
orchestra
PUCCINI'S TOSCA
AN EXPLOSION OF LOVE AND TREACHERY
Starring Vladimir Dragos as Scarpia
with International Sopranos Maria Tonina and Alyona Kistenyova as Tosca*
A
magnificent, traditional, fully-staged opera,
Tosca is set
against the dramatic
landscape of Rome
and the Napoleonic
Wars.
Directed as
a Gothic, Victorian horror story, Puccini’s Tosca is an epic tale of true love
and treachery featuring
torture, murder and
suicide alongside some
of opera’s best-known music, and is based on a play by
Victorien Sardou, it was once described as a “shabby little
shocker.”
It
tells of
Floria Tosca’s true
love for artist Mario
Cavaradossi. Tosca is forced to enter into a
deal with the Chief of Police
Baron Scarpia, in order to save Cavaradossi,
her lover, from
execution. Scarpia’s price
is Tosca’s seduction,
but she cannot go
through with it,
and in desperation
she stabs Scarpia
to death. Cavaradossi
is executed and,
realising all is
lost, Tosca throws
herself from the battlements to her death.
In preparation
for the current tour
and her new
staging of Tosca, Ellen Kent
took a trip
to Puccini’s house in
Italy.
Ellen Kent said:
“It was quite magical.
I didn’t think it would
be quite so inspiring. It was almost eerie – exactly as you would
imagine Puccini to have created, with beautiful memorabilia everywhere. There
were his shoes and clothes and pipes and all the models of his operas and his
actual scores with all his notes on them”.
She added “My
productions are always rather beautiful and I suddenly realised that in my
view, I have been doing
what Puccini would
have liked and
wanted. It felt like meeting
somebody I knew”.
With a
spectacular new set built in the UK by Set up
Scenery, who builds sets for the Royal Opera Covent Garden. This most
popular of operas,
with its tender
and moving arias Recondita Armonia, Vissi d’Arte and E
Lucevan le Stelle,
is a heady
mixture of true
love, torture and treachery, with two of the best
roles for tenor and soprano, plus a pure evil
villain as the baritone.
VLADIMIR DRAGOS returns
to sing his
most famous role
of Scarpia after
his acclaimed portrayal of Rigoletto on Ellen Kent’s last tour.
Sung in
Italian with English surtitles.
Tickets to performances are on sale now and
available in person at the Box Office on High Street West, from the Ticket Centre on 0844 871 3022* or
online at www.ATGtickets.com/Sunderland*
*Calls
cost 7p per minute plus your standard network charge. Booking fees may apply to
telephone and online bookings.
No comments:
Post a Comment