Tosca

Giacomo Puccini

Libretto de Luigi Illica & Giuseppe Giacosa

 

3 Acts

Sung in Italian

 

Jan Wierzba, Musical Director

Otelo Lapa e Catarina Molder, Stage Direction

Francisco Lima da Silva, new orchestral version

Otelo Lapa, Catarina Molder e Daniela Cardante, Set Design, props and costumes

Anatol Waschke, Light design

Jorge Serigado e Ricardo Costa, Sound design

Ensemble MPMP
Chorus: Nova Era Vocal Ensemble

 

Catarina Molder, Floria Tosca

Xavier Moreno, Mario Cavaradossi

Christian Lújan, Barone Scarpia

Luís Rodrigues, Sacristano

Nuno Dias, Angelotti

Rodrigo Carreto, Spoletta

Leandro Moreso, Sciarrone

 

Production: Ópera do Castelo

Length: 2h20 with intermission

THE GREAT PUCCINIAN THILLER

Love, politics, intrigue, betrayal, murder and suicide. All explosive ingredients which made Tosca become a paradigme of Italian verismo and one of the greatest sucesses by  great "master of emotion" Giacomo Puccini.
With a detective book plot , Puccini’s Tosca takes place in a occupied Rome where the life of the regime’s opposers is endangered. The liberal painter Mario Cavaradossi helps hidding a friend escaped from prison and loves the opera singer Floria Tosca, who for a long time has been coveted by the entrepidous chief of secret police, baron Scarpia.
Tosca is caught in a web she can’t escape and she is willing to do anything to save her beloved Mario Cavaradossi.
The seting of National Ancient Art Museum Garden, enriched by its cenographic element, presents itself perfect to recreate this timeless story, of one of the greatest emblematic operas of All-time.

 

TOSCA TODAY

It made no sense to recreate the usual nineteen Century paradigm of Puccini’s Tosca, which already reached perfection 60 years ago, performed by the greatest interpreters of all-time.

This production happens during covid pandemic, with all inherent limitations of this strange times we are living, where restriction of all kinds, which we accept without a blink of an eye, limit individual freedom. Let creativity and music save us.

Our interpretation of this story reenforce the actuality of the issues raised by this Libretto, namely the the abuse of power and corruption with a clear statement of use of Public Power Positions for personal benefit and less licit proposes, the annihilation of those who don’t agree with the established power and the sexual scandals of a certain conservative elite, who practises public virtues and private vices. The use of youth by the state, making them marionetes, in a consented way, used and abused by all and by everything, evoques the present situation of volunteers and interns, who subject themselves to anything, in exchange of a hypothetical future job promise, emblematic of the so-called liberal modern society.

 

Otelo Lapa & Catarina Molder