Based on Victorien Sardou’s 1887 French-language play, Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca of 1900 is one opera that few directors choose to set in anything other than its original time and place. There are exceptions to this rule, but when all of the action can be linked to a real historical event on a precise date, there are certainly advantages to retaining the intended setting, and many risks associated with changing it. The entire story takes place during the afternoon,...

Philipp Stolzl, the stage director of the Der fliegende Holländer’s version that is being performed at Liceu, states in the programme (quoted by Brigitte Heusinger): “We tell it (the story of the Dutchman)from the perspective of Senta… and we draw the psychograma of a woman that escaped into the world of legend and fantasy and does not manage to come back from it. Now, years later, Senta is a disoriented girl in the body of an adult woman”. The idea of...

Conductor Oksana Lyniv has entered the pit. An expectant silence has fallen over the audience. Suddenly, a ragtag group of long-haired men steps onstage. One introduces himself as the manager of the band Ciel. They’ve lost their lead singer, Ory. Have we seen him? So begins our Rossini-led romp through the 1980s. Instead of hoop skirts: leg warmers; instead of a chateau: a bowling alley. The captain of the women’s bowling team, Adele, is a pious and melancholy sort who has...