Toronto – Italian opera from Tosca to Othello on screen in Canadian capital

Italian opera will brighten up the Canadian winter in Toronto with three events at the Alliance Francaise theatre organised by the Italian Cultural Institute. The evenings will be dedicated to some of Italy’s most iconic composers and their works. The programme will begin on Tuesday, January 19 with the screening of the second act of Giacomo Puccini’s “Tosca”, featuring Renato Cioni and Tito Gobbi and conducted by Franco Zeffirelli in 1964 at London’s Covent Garden. The screening will be preceded by the 1987 documentary “Maria Callas: Life and Art”, directed by Alan Lewens and Alistair Mitchell, starring Maria Callas, Giuseppe Di Stefano, Carlo Maria Giulini, and Franco Zeffirelli. The second event will take place on February 16, with the screening of a recording of Giuseppe Verdi’s “Othello”, conducted by Riccardo Muti and starring Placido Domingo, Leo Nucci, and Brabara Frittoli, accompanied by the La Scala theatre orchestra and chorus, and Graham Vick behind the camera. The final evening will be on March 22 with Verdi’s “Falstaff”, again directed by Muti, with the La Scala theatre orchestra and chorus, and Ambrogio Maestri, Roberto Frontali, Juan Diego Flores, and Barbara Frittoli on stage. The opera was performed at the Busseto Opera House with the original stage set used in 1913.