A Puccini melodrama
Connecticut Lyric Opera brings ‘Tosca’ to the Garde
As it wraps up its 12th season, Connecticut Lyric Opera is returning to one of the classics of opera, Puccini's “Tosca.” It's bringing the work to a quartet of Connecticut cities — including New London for a Saturday performance at the Garde Arts Center — and then to Italy.
This will mark the third time that the New London-based CLO has performed in Italy as part of the Greve Opera Academy and Music Festival, which is a collaborative effort between CLO and the municipality of Greve-in-Chianti.
This international flavor is not as unexpected as it might seem.
Adrian Sylveen, who is artistic director of Connecticut Lyric Opera as well as of the Connecticut Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra, says, “I live a lot in Italy. Not this time (with this production of ‘Tosca' in Conneccticut), but we have had some Italian artists, we have them on the orchestral side. Then we work in Israel as well. We have contacts with the opera world there. Again, there will be more people coming from Israel in the future, I think …”
Indeed, “Tosca” features Frederique Bosz, who lives in Tel Aviv, alternating the role of Tosca with CLO stalwart Jurate Svedaite, who will play the role at the Garde.
Sylveen says, “I work internationally a lot these days. I just came back from Cuba, for example, and we will be having some Cuban opera artists joining us in the next season.”
But about the culmination of the current season: The title character in the melodramatic “Tosca” is a great Italian diva, caught, of course, between two men. One, a painter named Cavaradossi who is harboring a political prisoner who is fleeing from persecution, is true in his affections. The other is police chief Scarpia, who deviously arrests Cavaradossi, setting him up for execution. Scarpia, though, says he'll spare Cavardossi — if Tosca spends the night with Scarpia.
The tale, which is based on Victorien Sardou's 1887 play starring Sarah Bernhardt, is set in 1800 Rome, when city residents were worried as Napoleon invaded Italy.
Sylveen says “Tosca” is a beautiful drama and “the action of the drama is set in the context of Italian politics of the Napoleon era. We have a lot to choose from because we can play it (as a) straightforward romantic piece or we can emphasize more of the politics, where we don't get into politics itself but we see it influence life.”
“Tosca” also happens to feature gorgeous Puccini compositions and, Sylveen says, that “makes the opera work because, without that scoring, the drama — it's ok, but it's not Shakespeare, if you wish.”
It boasts some of Puccini's most famous arias, and the music propels “Tosca” into being the third of Puccini's top three operas, following “La Boheme” and “Madama Butterfly,” he says.
CLO usually performs its works in four locations in Connecticut, and that is the same case with “Tosca,” which it has staged in New Britain on May 12, Hartford on May 14, now New London on Saturday, and finally Middletown on May 26.
The stage director is Jan Mason, who is part of the theater faculty at Central Connecticut State University.
“For this production we have brought a ‘straight theater' stage director,” Sylveen says. “She emphasized the dramatic elements of the play and helped us to bring out the personal aspects of each of the characters. … I think she was very successful with emphasizing the universal qualities of all characters.”
Sylveen thinks the fact that the stage director is a woman has helped to deepen the character of Tosca.
Mason is a newcomer to CLO, but she's not the only one in this production. New, too, is Andrew Potter, who switches the roles of Scarpia and Angelotti with Steve Fredericks.
Daniel Juarez has performed with CLO before, but this is his first time in a CLO “Tosca,” as Cavaradossi.
Sylveen will lead the Connecticut Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra for the performances.
“It's very dark,” Sylveen says of “Tosca.” “It's three deaths and three deaths that, as one of my colleagues pointed out, at the beginning of the opera, nobody predicts.”
As for that darkness, he says, “Running this opera is very heavy on your soul. You get very, very exhausted, very emotionally involved, and I think it involves the audience, too. That's the beauty of it as well.”
“Tosca” is an oft-performed opera, and CLO has staged it before, most recently in 2011.
“Opera is a very strange art because we live in a time where, first of all, the artistic expressions last about 3 minutes. … The next thing is positive, that artists actually create a lot of their own materials. Whereas in the case of opera, you repeat, you repeat what we have done before,” Sylveen says. “So we must bring to it a new perspective and point of view, but we are also forced to look into the music and find the reason to do it. I think there is something very beautiful and very special about recreating a work of art.”
He references Shakespeare, whose plays theaters produce over and over. Puccini's works, like Shakespeare's, are well worth revisiting, he says. Sylveen says that Puccini “is certainly one of the geniuses of opera.”
Connecticut Lyric Opera “Tosca,” 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Garde Arts Center, 325 State St., New London; English supertitle translations projected above the stage; $38-$52; (860) 444- 7373.