Tosca

"Tosca" is a melodramma in three acts from 1900. Puccini created one of his harshest and most dramatic works with a taut dramaturgy: when the revolutionary-minded painter Mario Cavaradossi secretly helps a political fugitive escape, his beloved, the celebrated singer Floria Tosca, believes he is unfaithful, and the ruthless police chief Scarpia exploits her jealousy to entrap Cavaradossi before demanding a night with Tosca in exchange for the lover's release. The staging comes from Latvian theatre director Alvis Hermanis, who sets the action in the opera's creation period around 1900 and complements it with projected graphic-novel imagery from set and costume designer Kristine Jurjane. The performance runs about two and a half hours including a break after Act 1 and is sung in Italian with German and English surtitles.