Tosca is a monumental opera in the repertoire. How does one approach this opera?

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Tosca is both a complete and reassuring opera for a stage director as there is an exceptional musical and emotional force to it. But is also an opera with a thousand references and legendary productions so one must endeavour to reveal to the spectator, whether a beginner or a more experienced spectator even more of what moves us most. One must endeavour to give the audience a reading of this opera that even today reveals its originality.

It is true to say that Puccini’s librettists widely reduced the historical foundation of Victorien Sardou’s play, but, for me,  the opera has retained two themes that I find essential: faith and choice. Like Verdi, Puccini tries to communicate these two notions to the Italian people of his time and this is what I humbly wish to convey in my work.

One must not forget that the action takes place in June  1800, in the city of Rome where Marie-Caroline of Austria has imposed a reign of terror and subdued the opponents to the monarchy. When Puccini composes his opera at the end of the eighteen-nineties, Umberto the First’s reign is dominated by an authoritarian government that violently represses the demonstrations of the working poor. As almost all over Europe, Italy is shaken up by anarchist movements. When  Tosca was created in 1900, its political dimension which was almost unheard of in the history of opera until then, caused indignation among some of the spectators and there was even fear of a terrorist attack in the theatre. Why? No doubt because Mario believes in a code of human and political values that make him give his own life without a second thought rather than be a traitor. Even if she is full of doubt and jealousy, Tosca herself will undergo the same fate, when she chooses to kill herself rather than be killed.

 

So you have chosen to take us back to Rome in 1800?

 

The action indeed takes place in Rome during the Battle of Marengo in 1800; this is clearly shown in the libretto and does not   need to be stressed

 Tosca highlights the ideas of fear and moral hegemony, namely religious, to impose dictatorship and legitimize violence. It also questions the idea of each individual person’s responsibility for what happens to us. It is precisely because the people accept Scarpia that he can act with impunity. How can one resist authoritarism especially?

Does Art, represented here by a painter and a singer, have a part to play in this struggle?

These questions are not just to be asked in 1800 or even 1900. The stage directions are therefore voluntarily neutral concerning historical or geographic references.

 

How did you adapt to the specific constraints due to the exceptional circumstances for this production?

 

The pandemic has destabilized everyone, but has also allowed unusual projects to be revealed and one must seize this opportunity with joy and special attention. The Opéra de Lille bravely chose to maintain this program, even though it was not possible to adapt Robert Carsen’s production that was planned initially to the present context.

I had to imagine a scenic project very quickly, a project that had to include the presence of the orchestra, the placing of the choir on the balconies and the soloists on an empty stage, as well as showing the opera on small and large screens, not forgetting the fact that a few spectators might actually be there, namely the professionals and journalists. As the singers invaded both the stage and the space usually filled by the audience, I chose to make the theatre itself the space where the action took place.

In Sardou’s play as in the libretto, the story takes place respectively in Sant’Andrea della Valle, the Plazzo Farnese, and the Castel Sant’Angelo. Each of these places are place of rituals, like a theatre, with its setting, actors, and spectators. A church is a religious theatre where the so called victory of the Austrians over the French is celebrated by a Te Deum, the palace is a theatre of power where politics and socialites mingle, while the prison is the theatre where executions take place that the people often attend.This choice enables one to bring in the audience, spectators of the events, and the possible responsibility it may have in the coming tragedy or rather its sinking into a set model of society, the audience is not brave enough to escape from that makes it go to church and make a pact with terror with social life and from personal interest or even enjoy atrocities like voyeurs that will never really move it.

 

How do you work with the singers in the perspective of capture?

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First of all, I would like to stress the relevance and the quality of this cast I do this even more willingly since I arrived on the project after the singers had been chosen by the production. The three main parts, Tosca, Mario and Scarpa as well as the other characters are portayed by artists I consider ideal, both vocally and physically. I have the same requirements from them vis à vis the capture as well as the stage, but in this case, I  pay special attention to the body movement and of course faces, which are very important for the camera.