Tosca – Royal Ballet and Opera
Director Oliver Mears triumphs with this modern-day interpretation of Puccini’s full-blooded three-act drama of politics and power with its many allusions to global current affairs to the fore.
In a war-torn Rome, Floria Tosca (Anna Netreba) and Mario Cavaradossi (Freddie De Tommaso) live for each other and for their art. But when Cavaradossi helps an escaped prisoner, Cesare Angelotti (Ossian Huskinson), the lovers make a deadly enemy in the form of Baron Scarpia (Gerald Finley), Chief of Police. At the mercy of Scarpia’s twisted desires, Tosca is forced into making a horrific bargain: sleeping with the man she hates to save the man she loves. Can she find a way out?
Mears’ focus is very much on the darker elements at the heart of the piece, in particular the contrast in class b...