Singing shines in L.A. Opera’s ‘Tosca’

A new production of Puccini’s work doesn’t move the needle. Maybe that’s OK.

“Tosca” is back at Los Angeles Opera. The welltraveled production by British director John Caird, first seen here in 2013, has been revived. The cast, headed by popular Los Angeles native Angel Blue, as well as the conductor and production team are nearly all familiar. Saturday night’s performance at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the first of six through Dec. 10, was impressively sung if theatrically conventional. The needle on the meter that measures how much the art form of opera might have moved forward this evening didn’t budge.

The audience was dressed well, some even f lamboyantly. The line at the intermission bar, where a drink and a bag of potato chips along with tip could cost nearly as much as the cheapest seat, was long. It was, in what might be the dismissive public imagination, an elitist night at the opera. As if he had just such a “Tosca” in mind, the head of the Arts Council England, Darren Henley, defending the recent defunding of business-as-usual opera in Britain, made the withering suggestion last week that what is needed to make opera modern and accessible is to take it out of the opera house and bring it to the people in their pubs and car parks.

Where: Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., L.A.

When: 2 p.m. Sunday and Dec. 4; 7:30 p.m. Dec. 1, 7 and 10 (Gregory Kunde is Cavaradossi Dec. 7 and 10)

Tickets: $27-$399

Info: (213) 972-8001 or laopera.org

Running time: 2 hours, 45 minutes