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Giacomo Puccini died just ten years before the first Glyndebourne festival opened. 92 years later, Tosca – The global operatic blockbuster is a work that was once derided as a “little wonder” – finally made his Glyndebourne debut, opening the 2026 festival with a high-octane bloodbath led by the director Ted Huffman. Forget shabbiness (not because of the champagne and tuxedos); This whole show is amazing.
But Huffman is a conductor Robin Ticciati Play the longest game again. The curtain goes up inside a mid-20th century church. There are wooden pews and a young Madonna and child on the wall. Boys in uniform help men in socks; there is a real container, a real wooden ladder of the craftsman and mid-century modern lighting to illuminate his work (the first of many beautiful lighting features of this production). It is not 1800, but this is Tosca, which is well known.
With music, we are lured into a false sense of security. There are some fine lines of wood, but Ticciati controls it tightly London Philharmonic Orchestra‘s voice and dynamics. Like Cavaradossi, Matteo Lippi it has been burned with dignity, the cry of the past. Caitlin GotimerTosca goes from 0-60 in seconds, its shimmering high notes moving through Puccini’s music while its lower register resonates. Various minor roles are sung very well.
With the entry of the arch-villain Scarpia, these artificial bonds begin to tighten. Wearing a double-breasted suit, Vladislav Sulimsky it looks a bit like a bruiser wipe and sounds dangerously good. Ticciati draws midnight blacks from the bottom of the LPO. The drums and bells of the Te Deum are meticulously amplified, hearing the intensity of the action (undercut by a well-honed chorus) suggestive of real revulsion.
After that: a strong run away from the Tosca-paradigm. The Palazzo Farnese hosts a luxurious restaurant, Scarpia, the head of the secret police, the social-misfit maître d’. He’s brought a burger and a squirt of ketchup with pantomime seasoning. The assistants laugh and watch as Cavaradossi is brought and tortured in the kitchen. Scarpia emerges as quickly as Tosca sings Vissi D’arte. Gotimer sings a great song – but his desperate cry of “Muori” when he stabs Scarpia is so powerful, Ticciati now lets the orchestra start singing and barking, his violence not found.
The last act is the most compelling of all. The preparation is not left anywhere, the lighting – with a spectacular, beautiful beauty – with fire lamps. The heart-felt light of Lippi’s E Lucevan le Stelle and the vivid explosion of the orchestra as Tosca enters provide an ominous foreshadowing of the gloom at center stage. Huffman’s take on the familiar denouement is too good to be spoiled here, but it’s perfectly understandable — even if it leaves me reeling.
