Amarillo Opera opens their season with political thriller 'Tosca'

Amarillo Opera kicks off their 35th season with Giacomo Puccini's "Tosca" on Saturday, Oct. 7 at 7 p.m. at the Globe-News Center for the Performing Arts.

The story, played out in three acts, is a political thriller set in 1800s Rome during the Napoleonic wars, where Rome's diva Floria Tosca is being lusted after by the corrupt chief of police, Baron Scarpia, who believes Tosca's lover, Mario Cavaradossi, a painter and republican, is harboring an escaped political prisoner.

Scarpia, wanting to have Tosca all to himself, manipulates her into revealing Cavaradossi’s crimes and captures him. The corrupt officer then presents Tosca an ultimatum, to let her lover die or give herself to Scarpia. Tosca then takes matters into her own hands and decides who will live and who will die.

"Tosca desperately wants to be loved, and therefore she is willing to do anything to keep Cavaradossi, ... and the audience will see within the show her become stronger and become someone she didn't know she was going to be in the beginning," Kara Shay Thomson, portraying Floria Tosca, said. "Tosca was very sheltered in the beginning. As all of the events take place, she not only is exposed to all of the evil of life, but also finds this strength within her that she didn't know she had."

This production includes a mix of local talent and traveling classical singers, including Amarillo native and tenor Eric Barry portraying the painter Cavaradossi, also known for his local role as The Duke of Mantua in Amarillo Opera's "Rigoletto." Thompson, the soprano portraying the title character, said she came to Amarilllo for the first time from her home in Cincinnati, Ohio, and has traveled the nation portraying the role of Tosca. Her on-stage rival Scarpia is portrayed by Wayne Tigges, a bass-baritone who recently sang the rolewith Opera Santa Barbara, and he said he is excited to perform for the Amarillo community for the first time.

"This is a well-known story, but it is also a great first opera to attend because there are many great melodies with a great story line. The characters are really powerful and charismatic, with the bad guy being a true bad guy and the diva having a glorious evolvement as sung with beautiful melodies. It is one of the go-to operas for first operas, with good well-known music and good melodies and imagery that will stick in their head," Tigges said.

The Amarillo Opera production's stage director, Layna Chianakas, said she is excited to bring to life the story accompanied by many different elements, including the usage of film and imagery to create onstage projections as an impression of added emotions and backstory for the audience.

"I have been a singer for over three decades and have been a stage director for now three years, and 'Tosca' is definitely one of my favorites. ... When you direct or sing this piece, you really feel like you're singing that Verismo time period of realism and the 'blood and guts' type of expression. It is so satisfying to direct and sing, and Puccini was a man of the theater. Every single physical gesture is in the music; every chord has a reason, so you have to match up as a stage director physically and emotionally to match the meaning of those moments," Chianakas said.

The production's musical score will be performed live by the Amarillo Symphony Orchestra as directed by Conductor George Jackson. Some well-known pieces that will be performed in the opera include "Vissi d'arte" ("I lived for art"), “Recondita armonia” and “E lucevan le stelle.“

"'Tosca' is one of the most symphonic operas of its time, so this period of opera, the old Italian style of singing with accompaniment had finished, and so composers were starting to create the beginnings of film music essentially, a film length piece where the music goes underneath as a kind of undercurrent of the drama and livens what is happening onstage," Jackson said. "For the orchestra, they are almost another character in the opera, and everything they do is so dramatic and intense and almost symphonic, so it is more than just accompaniment underneath from the pit, which I think will be nice for the viewers."

Tickets to "Tosca" can be purchased online or by calling the office at 806-372-7464. For more information about the Amarillo Opera or to purchase tickets online, visit the Amarillo Opera website at https://www.amarilloopera.org/ .

This article originally appeared on Amarillo Globe-News: Amarillo Opera presents Giacomo Puccini's dark "Tosca"