A smoky-eyed ‘Tosca’ sizzles in National Opera production
Black-and-white posters promoting «Tosca» all around Athens invite opera lovers to the National Opera’s latest production, which opened last week. The poster, which calls to mind a femme fatale in an American film-noir production, features Kristine Opolais, the interpreter who plays the part of the main character in Puccini’s famous opera. How different is this production from conventional ideas of the opera? Nikos Petropoulos, who once more is both director and set designer, does not usually give his productions a contemporary setting. But how can a «Tosca» with such obvious references to cinema be compatible with the fall of Rome in the hands of Napoleon’s army in 1800? «I am not keen on changing the setting of the plot just for the sake of doing it. I need an historical background in order to move on, some correspondence with the real setting of the original play’s plot,» said Petropoulos shortly before attending the general rehearsal. When the National Opera’s artistic director Stefanos Lazaridis suggested a «noir» Tosca to him, he was in no hurry to give an answer, but asked for a six-week deadline. It turned out that there were far too many historical coincidences between 1800 and February 1944 for him to turn the suggestion down. It was wartime both in 1800 and in 1944, when the allied forces fought in Monte Cassino to free Rome from the Nazis. Even aesthetically, the analogies appear challenging. «On the one hand you have Puccini’s verism and on the other you have Italian neo-realism, which was born out of the ashes of WWII. We are honest as to what we do,» added Petropoulos. The noir aesthetics run through the entire production. Petropoulos is the first Greek to be directing the National Opera ever since Lazaridis took on the post of artistic director and he gave his opinion on Lazaridis’s efforts for renewal. «These innovations are only innovations by Greek standards; they have been happening abroad for years now,» he said. But he was quick to dismiss the fact that his words sound like criticism. «I think it is a good thing to break tradition and it seems that people respond. Let’s just hope that there will be a young audience that will gradually become educated, as happened at the Athens Concert Hall 15 years later,» he added. The remaining performances of «Tosca» have been scheduled for tonight, Friday and Sunday. Olympia Theater, 59-61 Academias, tel 210.361.2461.
