Three hours before the opera starts, and the audience is already there. When was the last time that happened? Out on the green in Roskilde, just over 30 kilometres west of Copenhagen, things are a liiiittle different. Here, opera comes with sunshine, soft blankets and seriously well-stocked picnic baskets. The performance is only one part of the evening.

The open-air amphitheatre holds almost 3,000 people and will be blowing out 25 candles next year. Every summer, the troops are gathered, an orchestra is cobbled together, and a new opera is thrown into the mix of a few performances in early August. This year, they’ve gone for one of Puccini’s greatest hits: Tosca. You know, just a small, cheerful story about love, lust, torture and murder…

Opera Under Cover

If you go to Verona, Bregenz, Oper im Steinbruch, the Terme di Caracalla – or, since we’re on the subject, Opera Hedeland – don’t expect a great musical epiphany. That’s simply not what outdoor opera is for.

Opera singers are, after all, built for the box. Give them four walls, a roof and a decent acoustic, and they can unleash all their vocal artillery. Take away the walls and, well… suddenly we need microphones. Lots of them. Stuck to the singer’s cheek, and an orchestra plugged into a wall of black speakers. Before you know it, Puccini starts sounding suspiciously like the LP sitting on your shelf at home.

No, no put the finger away. That’s missing the point entirely.

You wrap yourself in a blanket. You bring a picnic basket and a smile on your face. You sit in the Danish wilderness and watch the sun go down while someone nearby quietly unwraps a sandwich. There’s an opera happening somewhere in front of you, too. 

Musically, things actually hold up rather nicely – all things considered.

Yana Kleyn first entered the Moscow Conservatory as a pianist before later switching to singing. Her Tosca is not exactly the type to set the stage on fire, but perhaps that is no bad thing. She sings beautifully, with an intensity that doesn’t need much fuss.

Daniel Miroslaw, on the other hand, is clearly having fun with the villain department. Last year, I heard him as Iago in Otello in Stuttgart. This time, he has simply traded one villainous moustache for another and stepped into Scarpia’s shoes.

Iago and Scarpia: two men I’d keep well away from both my lunch and my life.

Scarpia wants two things: power and Tosca. He is not particularly picky about how he gets them.

Stairway To Heaven?

One thing Tosca does not leave us guessing about is where we are. Sant’Andrea della Valle, Rome. A church. 

So how does director Rodula Gaitanou tell us we’re in a church? Easy. The floor is more or less shaped like a cross – although one arm of it has grown a staircase. And while it does go up, it looks less like a stairway to heaven and more like a stairway to somewhere you probably shouldn’t be going…

And when Tosca starts losing the plot, she has a tendency to throw herself onto the floor, arms stretched out to either side. Just in case we had somehow missed the cross.

It is a big stage. And if you happen to be sitting a little further back, you need slightly more than a delicate hand gesture or a small candle to make an impression. This is where the production could (or should?) have gone a little bigger. We have all this glorious outdoor space, after all – we might as well use it.

The black Audi, however, is hard to miss.

And then there is the lake, sitting quietly behind the scene, big, beautiful and suspiciously serene. Towards the end, it gets its moment too – but that’s all I’m telling you.

Director Rodula Gaitanou has a little plot twist up her sleeve, one I certainly haven’t seen before, I believe. But I’ll keep my mouth shut and let you see – after all, what fun would a spoiler be?

Let’s just say that by the end of the evening, things have turned considerably redder than you might have expected. 

And just like that, it’s time to pack up the picnic, emerge from your warm blanket and make the journey back to civilisation.

Fun Fact!

Floria Tosca is the opera’s one and only female character.

Cast: 

• Conductоr: Carlo Goldstein
• Directоr: Rodula Gaitanou
• Stаge and Lightning Designer: Simon Corder
• Сostume Designer: Gøje Rostrup 
• Сhoir: Filipe Carvalheiro

• Tosca: Yana Kleyn
• Cavaradossi: Peter Lodahl
• Scarpia: Daniel Miroslaw
• Angelotti: Jonah Spungin
• Spoletta: Conny Thimander
• Sciarrone/Sagrestano: Gustav Johansson
• Orchestra: Opera Hedeland Festivalorkester
• Choir: Opera Hedeland Festivalkor