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After their huge success with La bohème at Graves Gallery in 2014, Opera on Location return to one of their favourite composers and bring Giacomo Puccini’s much loved classic Tosca to life at the recently refurbished Abbeydale Picture House.
Written in 1900, Tosca is undoubtedly one of the world’s greatest operas and is considered Puccini’s first exploration into realism. Focussing on aspects of real life, Tosca draws upon human emotions including love, jealously, anger, loyalty and loss to create its heartbreaking story. All accompanied with the ever stunning music of Puccini, it is impossible to deny the sheer majesty of this opera.
Bringing Tosca to prohibition-era America, this production sees Tosca and her lover Cavaradossi caught in the middle of gang warfare. Whilst trying to protect his friend Angelotti, Cavaradossi puts himself in danger and is hunted down by the malevolent and corrupt detective; Scarpia. Knowing Cavaradossi will never betray his friendship, Scarpia focuses his attention on Tosca and uses his position to blackmail and psychologically torment the young singer until she tells him what he wants to know.
After bargaining all that she has to save her lover, Tosca is forced to do unspeakable things to make sure that both she and Cavaradossi survive the night, but will it be enough?
Originally opened in 1920, the Abbeydale Picture House provides the perfect setting for the performance. Incorporating some of the intended features of the cinema, such as live music, bespoke projections and moving imagery, the opera will be brought to life in the art-deco setting and will take inspiration from 1920s Sheffield, which has been dubbed England’s ‘little Chicago’ due to the violence in the area at the time.
Join Opera on Location for a musical and visual delight that will stir emotion in even the hardest of hearts.
Giacomo Puccini
1858-1924
Born into a long line of church musicians, Puccini was, as expected, at first a church organist. However, after gaining a place at the Milan Conservatory he soon turned his immense talent to opera. Puccini wrote twelve operas in total including the much beloved La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, Gianni Schicchi and Turandot which was completed posthumously first by Franco Alfano and then later again by Luciano Berio.
Cast and Creatives
Location: Abbeydale Picture House
Originally a cinema, the Abbeydale Picture House opened in December 1920 and was nicknamed locally as the “Picture Palace” due to the lavish interior decoration and carvings, mosaic flooring and velvet seating.
Closed for many years, the building is now undergoing renovation. However, the Grade II listed building is regularly open to the public as a mixed use community arts venue as the work progresses. The perfect backdrop for our 1920’s inspired production of Puccini’s Tosca.
