Review: Tosca, OperaUpClose, Soho Theatre

Maybe I do like Puccini after all! I certainly enjoyed this very small scale production (five singers, three musicians) more than the might of the ENO. I hadn’t expected to – I saw the OperaUpClose version of Britten’s Turn of the Screw which was terrific but that was a chamber opera to start with and only had five characters anyway. In the event, this was terrific. The updated libretto placed it in East Germany shortly before the collapse of Honecker’s government which suited the plot well. The good value programme (£3) included the full English libretto but every word was clear (no need for surtitles here). Grab a ticket while you can – it finishes this Sunday. My only complaint is that the programme lists both casts, two singers per role, so it wasn’t clear which singers I saw and I can’t credit them – Scarpia was particularly excellent.

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