Tosca
Tosca, Choregies d’Orange, Théâtre Antique. Bryn Terfel, Roberto Alagna and Aleksandra Kurzak
The Chorégies d’Orange closed triumphantly on July 22, with a semi-staged version of Giacomo Puccini ‘s masterpiece Tosca, to which the festival wanted to pay tribute in this centenary year. The venue was full, especially since the cast assembled in the Provençal city by Jean-Louis Grinda had enough to make lyrical art aficionados from all…
A Tosca that captures the opera’s thuggish violence, Grange Festival
**** Tosca has always been a dark story of violence and cruelty, that crushes love and hope. The famous ending, here with the jealous singer falling backwards from the battlements of Castel Sant’Angelo with her chilling final words, is one of vengeance and hate not of love. That love has been ripped out of her…
Feisty Tosca fights the fascists at Grange Park Opera
**** Grange Park has brought together a powerful cast for this revival of Peter Relton’s 2017 direction of Tosca, with similarly stentorian conducting of the BBC Concert Orchestra by Mark Shanahan. While I am unfamiliar with the 2017 original show that is now revived by Stephen Medcalf, it remains the performance of the cast and…
Welsh singers make Royal Opera history
Operatic history has been made this week with two Welsh singers taking the leading roles in Puccini’s Tosca at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, for the first time. Gwyn Hughes Jones, from Llanbedrgoch, Anglesey and Natalya Romaniw, from Swansea, sang the doomed lovers Mario Cavaradossi and Floria Tosca in the ever popular opera. The run…
Natalya Romaniw to make Royal Opera debut
Natalya Romaniw makes her Royal Opera debut in the title role of Tosca this coming week. It may be a daunting prospect for any singer but the Swansea-born soprano feels the time is right and says she is more excited than nervous. “I used to watch performances at Covent Garden when I was a student…
South Facing Festival to include ENO Tosca
South Facing Festival at Crystal Palace Bowl in Crystal Palace Park, South London, includes two open-air performances of Tosca from English National Opera on Friday August 27 and Sunday August 29. British conductor Richard Farnes will lead the ENO Orchestra and Chorus. The young cast will include Natalya Romaniw in the title role and Cavaradossi…