A scene from Sir David McVicar’s new staging of Tosca. PHOTO: Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

Puccini’s Tosca opens the 2018 season of MetLive in HD film screenings around the world on Saturday, January 27. The production involves a new staging by Sir David McVicar.

Faithful to Puccini’s vision, his production is set in Rome in the Napo­leonic era, the scenes being in the church of Sant’Andrea della Valle, Palazzo Farnese and Castel Sant ’Angelo.

Sonya Yoncheva is in the title role of the jealous prima donna; Vittorio Grigolo is her lover Cavaradossi; and Željko Lučić is the depraved officer, Scarpia.

“There’s something about the way this bodice-ripping melodrama launches with those amazing brass chords in the orchestra, which seems to be saying ‘This is Rome’ – it needs an MGM treatment,” says McVicar.

Other MetLive 2018 screenings, all on Saturday evenings, include:
• February 10, 5pm: Bartlett Sher’s staging of Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore with South African soprano Pretty Yende as the feisty Adina and Matthew Polenzani as the lovesick Nemorino
• February 24, 5.30pm: Franco Zeffirelli’s much-loved production of Puccini’s La Boheme with Sonya Yoncheva as Mimi and Michael Fabiano as Rodolfo.
• March 10, 5.55pm: Rossini’s bel canto masterpiece Semiramide with is dazzling vocal fireworks sung by Angela Meade in the title role and Elizabeth DeShong in the trouser role of the young officer Arsace.
• March 31, 5.55pm: Phelim McDermott’s imaginative vistion of Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte with Christopher Maltman as the manipulative Don Alfonso.
• There are two more screenings in April, Verdi’s Luisa Miller on the 14th and Massenet’s Cendrillon on the 28th.

• Cinemas screening MetLive in HD operas include the Barbican; BFI Imax; Curzon Bloomsbury and Mayfair; Everyman Belsize Park and Hampstead; Phoenix East Finchley; Vue Finchley North, Islington and West End