Tosca
Lyric Opera

SouthtownStar- Highly Recommended

"...Sex, politics and religious hypocrisy are an explosive combination in Tosca. Add to that a ravishing musical score by Giacomo Puccini and dazzling vocal pyrotechnics, and you have a spine-tingling kickoff to the Lyric Opera of Chicago's 2009-10 season."
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Betty Mohr

NewCity Chicago- Somewhat Recommended

"...Sir Andrew Davis kept things slow in the pit and while he fired up the melodrama, there was little in the way of Mediterranean sunshine. The Franco Zefferelli-and-Renzo Mongiardino-painted backdrops—created at Covent Garden for Maria Callas and cutting-edge in their day—are now 45 years old, looking every bit their age despite consistently low lighting levels. (The Zefferelli team has since created an entirely new production for the Met, although he has disavowed any connection to a controversial “Tosca” that opened the Met season a week ago to sustained boos.) If Lyric wants to make use of an older, more traditional production, it would do well to resurrect the more sumptuous three-dimensional design of Pier Luigi Pizzi."
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Dennis Polkow

ChicagoCritic- Highly Recommended

"...I recommend this opera for anyone who has been flirting with opera but has not yet fallen head-over-heels. Like all opera, you have to suspend a certain amount of disbelief, but Tosca is certainly more realistic, more believable, than most. It requires a certain amount of imagination in order to be able to empathize with the characters and to be able to fuse together the music with the action on stage. The work that it requires is worth the effort."

Evan Kuchar