– Detroit Opera House, Detroit

About this event

Detroit Opera presents director Louisa Proske’s 2025 staging of Puccini’s Tosca, first seen at the Glimmerglass Festival, reimagined in Fascist Italy of the 1930s. Proske frames the opera as a tightly built political thriller, sharpening themes of authoritarian power, surveillance, and individual conscience. The production turns Tosca’s cat-and-mouse struggle with Scarpia into a noir-inflected narrative of secret police, moral compromise, and a diva with everything to lose. By shifting to the 1930s, the staging probes how artists navigate repression, whether art can survive under dictatorial control, and when acceptance becomes collusion. Tosca’s dual identity—celebrated performer and devout Catholic—anchors the concept, illuminating her impossible choices when faced with brute power. Music director Roberto Kalb conducts the Detroit Opera Orchestra, Chorus, and Youth Chorus as this production launches the company’s 2026–27 season-long exploration of faith.

Cast & creative

• 

  Floria Tosca

  Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha
• 

  Mario Cavaradossi

  Nathan Granner
• 

  Baron Scarpia

  Alfred Walker
• 

  Conductor

  Roberto Kalb
• 

  Stage director

  Louisa Proske
• G

  Composer

  Giacomo Puccini
• L

  Librettist

  Luigi Illica
• G

  Librettist

  Giuseppe Giacosa