After, or during, an opera, singers receive applause from the audience; however, there are many people who work very hard for the show that the audience doesn’t see. In particular, a director of an opera may have a different view and perspective of it from the actors. Amiel Gladstone, the stage director for Tosca, is excited about this opera, as it’s a new challenge for him.
Gladstone, who has a lot of experience directing shows, says his job is “basically coming up with an overall concept of the opera and the style and working with individualsŃthe conductor, designers, and singers, and putting it all together.”
Tosca is one of the most fabulous operas of all time. In it, Floria Tosca, a singer and main character, is in love with Cavaradossi, an artist. They are in Rome, at the time of the revolution. Rome is under the thumb of Scarpia, the ruthless and evil chief of police.
“Scarpia is ruling maybe not in the most legal and upright of ways,” says Gladstone, “and so the revolutionary, Cavaradossi, who escapes from the castle, hides and Scarpia finds out. So through various methods he tries going after Cavaradossi and Tosca. He gets in the way of their love.”
Like the characters’ journey, Gladstone’s own career-path journey was quite uneasy. Even though opera is a little bit new to him, he decided to come back to Victoria from Vancouver, mostly in order to learn about this new world and to take on a challenge in a new field.
“It’s the world that I know nothing about,” he says. “I am learning the opera world. It is important to me to be always learning. It’s also an enormous, much larger, theatre. That’s important to me, because sometimes theatre shows are very small. It’s an opportunity to work big.”
Although working for opera is new to him, he fully understands what composer Giacomo Puccini wanted to tell though his piece. Conveying the ideas of Puccini to the audience is important for him, as Gladstone wants the audience to feel and experience them.
“I think that what we are trying to do with this opera is create a performance that allows the original Puccini to be shown, to be heard, and to be experienced,” says Gladstone, “but also, that has a contemporary and modern spin on it.”
Tosca
8 pm, April 4, 6, 10
2:30 pm, April 14
Royal Theatre
rmts.bc.ca