Puccini: Tosca - Theater an der Wien (2022) [Blu-ray]

It is impossible to imagine today’s opera repertoire without Puccini’s Tosca, but rarely has an opera been so brutal: Murder, torture and love, jealousy and passion – everything is present in abundance. When it was written in 1900, this thriller set to music caused considerable controversy due to the political figureheads involved. Only much later the story about the deeply religious Tosca, the passionate Cavaradossi and the sadistic Scarpia was interpreted as the psychological drama it was meant to be. The drama on stage is accompanied from the orchestra pit by Marc Albrecht conducting the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra by pointed sketches of the characters, but also - as typical for Puccini - by lyrical turns and beautiful melodies that make this opera shocker unique.

“Marc Albrecht, with a fabulously disposed ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra, [...] – a masterly achievement.” (Opernwelt).

Next to Kristine Opolais, “a great, highly dramatic singing actress whose interpretation gets under the skin” (Kurier), sings the discovery of the evening, “the young tenor Jonathan Tetelman stems Caravadossi with juvenile power and tenoral beam that almost bursts the dimensions of the house.” (Opernwelt).