Grand production of ‘Tosca’ closes Townsend Opera season

The good news is “Tosca” star Jill Gardner identifies with her character in the famed Puccini opera. The even better news is she doesn’t identify with the more murderous nature of her character.

“The real truth is Floria Tosca is not that far away from Jill Gardner. I will willingly admit I’ve never murdered anyone, but I’ve sure thought about it,” said the North Carolina-based soprano who portrays the title character. “So all of that is not so far-fetched for me to process. I love the text, and I love really being able to dramatically deliver lines in a way that fleshes it out. In that propensity, this is a character that is very much a part of my own soul.”

Townsend Opera stages its production of “Tosca” next Friday (May 1) and May 3 at the Gallo Center for the Arts. Giacomo Puccini’s thriller about a deadly love triangle and political intrigue premiered in 1900 in Rome. The Townsend production will be set in 1940s fascist Italy but still follow the grand opera tradition in its scope and style.

“The idea is this piece, even though it represents some of the best qualities for grand opera tradition, is also about real people in real times,” Gardner said. “So unlike other opera, which is about gods and more mythic characters, this is really about real people.”

“Tosca” follows a dramatic day in the life of the opera’s eponymous singer, Tosca, who is a celebrated performer in Rome, and her artist lover and political rebel, Mario Cavaradossi (played by tenor John Pickle). Complicating their lives is corrupt chief of police Baron Scarpia (played by baritone Zeffin Hollis), who wants Tosca for himself and to squash Cavaradossi politically.

“The main thrust of the piece is about power as it manifests itself through politics and sex, lust, jealously, betrayal,” Gardner said. “How many TV series right now are about that, you know what I mean?”

The opera was last staged by Townsend Opera in 2006, under the company’s late founding director, Erik Buck Townsend. Current Townsend general and artistic director Matthew Buckman said he paired the show with the already completed production of “A Streetcar Named Desire” this season to showcase the company’s new forward-thinking philosophy.

“For our company, we really want to start to explore what an opera company can be. This means experimenting with newer repertoires and traditional repertoires. We want to juxtapose the two on top of each other,” he said. “With ‘Streetcar,’ we had a very 20th-century piece. It was very contemporary and of today, telling an American story. So we’re pairing that with one of the most traditional productions of the standard opera repertoire.”

The show will have backdrops painted in the 1950s by Italian masters that are owned by a company in New York. Both leads are also veterans of the performance. This will be Gardner’s 12 production and Pickle’s fourth.

“For me, when you have people who have done a show like this so many times, the challenge in rehearsal is putting all the ideas together. You have to find the best way to make the ideas work together. And then find a way to make that all believable to Modesto audiences,” said Pickle, who is based out of New York City. “We hope people come out and let us convince them why they love opera.”

The production also includes the return of Modesto native Max Hosmer as the character of Spoletta, a police agent. Hosmer, who graduated from Downey High and California State University, Stanislaus, recently completed his master’s of music in vocal performance from the University of Colorado, Boulder.

The piece will conclude the first season of Townsend Opera’s artistic and operational partnership with the Fresno Grand Opera. Both the January production of “Streetcar” and the upcoming “Tosca” had and will receive a staging in Fresno after their Modesto shows.

Buckman, who also serves as general director of Fresno Grand Opera, said he is pleased with how the partnership has gone in its first year.

“Change is inherently difficult. And doing something like this is inherently very challenging. We’re in a multiyear process to build an audience for the future,” Buckman said. “Ultimately, our goal is to make opera more sustainable in the Central Valley, and at the end of the day, that’s what’s happening.”

This story was originally published April 22, 2015 at 5:00 PM with the headline "Grand production of ‘Tosca’ closes Townsend Opera season."