Not what we expected: the new Tosca at ENO has compelling dramatic tension, creating one of the most gripping accounts I have seen in a long time

Puccini: Tosca (Act 1) – Robert Hayward, Christopher Purves, Osian Wyn Bowen, Christopher Nairne – English National Opera 2026 [Photo: Ellie Kurttz]

Puccini: Tosca; Axelle Fanyo, Chaz’men Williams-Ali, Christopher Purves, dir: Annilese Miskimmon, cond: Ben Glassberg; English National Opera at the London Coliseum
Reviewed 10 November 2026

Though not without its problems, Annilese Miskimmon’s reinvention of Tosca has compelling dramatic tension and narrative thrust, allied to powerful individual performances.

Many of Verdi’s operas have the sort of background detail that means directors can re-set and refocus productions without doing any particular violence to the dramaturgy; Verdi’s interest is in the personal interactions rather than the society that gives rise to them. Puccini on the other hand, like a number of other composers in the giovane scuola, has a fascination for the detailed nitty-gritty of the setting. When Richard Jones directed The Girl of the Golden West at English National Opera in 2014 he commented that the plots of Puccini operas were complex mechanisms that you tinkered with at your peril.

Puccini: Tosca (Act 1) – Axelle Fanyo, Chaz-men Williams-Ali English National Opera 2026 [Photo: Ellie Kurttz]

Annilese Miskimmon‘s new production of Puccini’s Tosca for English National Opera which opened on 30 October has come in for some considerable critical comment for it’s resetting of the opera, adjusting the dramaturgy to fit a location which was firmly non-religious. The production is one of a pair as Miskimmon is linking Puccini’s Tosca to Kaija Saariaho’s Adriana Mater, so it will be interesting to see if this does pay dividends.

We caught up with Tosca at the London Coliseum on 10 November 2026, and I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised, finding much to enjoy in the performance. Ben Glassberg conducted with French soprano Axelle Fanyo as Tosca, American tenor Chaz’men Williams-Ali as Cavaradossi, and Christopher Purves as Scarpia, plus Alaric Green as Angelotti, Robert Hayward as the Sacristan, Osian Wyn Bowen as Spoleta and Christopher Nairne as Sciarrone [Nairne was singing two performances with Steffan Lloyd Owen doing the remainder]. Alaric Green, Osian Wyn Bowen and Steffan Lloyd Owen are all ENO Harewood Artists. The sets were by Rosanna Vize and costumes by Evie Gurney.

In the programme book, the setting is described as a concert hall in Eastern Europe somewhere in the 1980s. Miskimmon ties the opera’s plot to ideas of the way art suffers during conflict. In Act One there was considerable musical activity in the venue and as the opera progressed we saw musicians threatened and instruments damaged so that the focus in Act Three was a pyre of musical instruments that were going to be burned. The setting remained the same for all three acts not by some sleight of the designer’s hand but because that was where this Scarpia’s focus was. The action never left the venue of act one.

This was a production that made the implicit violence of Puccini’s original explicit, and the production worked if you took on board the idea that Scarpia’s actions were involving some sort of military coup. Also, we thought that the setting worked if you took Miskimmon’s words in the programme book with a pinch of salt. The fact that a concert hall has some sort of religious shrine in it was never explained. The venue felt much more as if it was a utilitarian 1950s Roman Catholic church, I have seen ones not dissimilar, and the focus on religion (of a Roman Catholic sort) felt closer to Latin America than Eastern Europe (though I suppose Poland would work).

What I enjoyed was the way that Miskimmon had avoided all the standard directorial tropes in the opera.

There was a sense that everything in the drama we were seeing had been thought through anew. I liked the way that one of the first things that Scarpia’s soldiers did in Act One was to organise the over-painting of Cavaradossi’s Magdalene mural. Then the Te Deum at the end of the act was a hurriedly assembled affair done under the aegis of the soldiers. Scarpia was not fussily eating a meal in Act Two, and for Cavaradossi’s ‘Vittoria’ aria we had little of the standard posturing. Before his final scene in Act Two, this Scarpia removed his trousers (carefully folding them; a nice detail) and rather more than some productions you sensed that he really was going to rape Tosca, then at the end of the act there was none of the mummery that Puccini’s requested. Tosca did not leap from anywhere at the end (though she does die!)

Not everything worked. The way Angelotti (Alaric Green) hid had an unfortunate element of farce to it. At the beginning of Act Two the offstage chorus was on-stage, up on the balcony of the set, and this affected the balance so that the tense initial dialogue between Scarpia (Christopher Purves) and Cavaradossi (Chaz’men Williams-Ali) was almost overpowered.

But having the same setting throughout brought a sense of tension and coherent drama to the piece. This was particularly true of Act Three, which Puccini’s publisher Ricordi thought was too disparate but there was not enough time to change it. Frankly, I found this one of the most gripping accounts of Tosca I have seen in a long time. Often directorial changes niggle and annoy when they do not fit [such as in Opera North’s recent production of Eugene Onegin, also set in the 1980s], but here the arc of dramatic tension was frankly compelling.

Puccini: Tosca (Act 1) – Christopher Purves, Robert Hayward – English National Opera 2026 [Photo: Ellie Kurttz]

The production was credited with a movement director (Imogen Knight), a fight director (Brad Wendes) and an intimacy director (Haruka Kurada). This seems to have paid off because though there was violence (including roughing up of Angelotti’s sister, Marchesa Attavanti) it never became objectionable and the way the violence and the sex were intertwined in Act Two worked well. Cavaradossi’s injuries were believable and carried over into Act Three.

Amanda Holden’s translation was used but it had been adjusted to fit the setting and some of these adjustments did not quite work so they drew notice to themselves. This was particularly true as the singers’ diction was rather more coherent than usual.

Axelle Fanyo made a strong and gutsy Tosca. Her projection of the English text was excellent and throughout the evening you felt the power of this character. This was a rich and powerful lyric voice that projected well, you were never in doubt of this Tosca. In Act One she was not as diva-like as some, this was personal jealousy rather than grand behaviour, then in Act Two she faced up to Christopher Purves’ slimy Scarpia with real intensity. The scenes between these two crackled in a way that does not always happen. But the tension between Fanyo and Purves did rather throw into relief the relationship of Tosca and Cavaradossi; Fanyo and Williams-Ali made them fond but never quite achieve the burning necessity that carries all before it.

Miskimmon’s production was extremely busy, with lots of movement by chorus and actors throughout Act One and the beginning of Act Two. But then the stage gradually emptied so it was only Purves and Fanyo, and then for ‘Vissi d’arte’, there was just Fanyo alone on stage. This focused on the aria, and its message of living for love and art, in a way that can be missed. Fanyo did not disappoint here, and gave a dignified yet moving account of the aria. In Act Three she did everything needed, and made the death scene coherent.

Puccini: Tosca (Act 3) – Axelle Fanyo – English National Opera 2026 [Photo: Ellie Kurttz]

Chaz’men Williams-Ali has a strong tenor voice with a cutting edge that brought an interesting sense of timbre to it and made you think of spinto roles (such as Manrico in Il trovatore). Williams-Ali is a big man and used his size to his advantage, this Cavaradossi was considered and often rather dignified. Yet there was incipient power, the sense that Scarpia would never quite overcome him. The scenes in Act Two were thankfully lacking in melodrama and his final aria in Act Three had a lovely quiet focus to it. Yet in his duet with Fanyo in that act, the two’s interaction really soared in a way that had not happened earlier.

Christopher Purves’ insidious and slimy Scarpia was a remarkable creation. Totally lacking the bombast that often goes with this character, Purves used timbre and tone, along with a really sense of language to make Scarpia insistent, able to undermine virtually any of his interlocuters, and doing so with remarkable relish. The weakness of this approach was that at the end of Act One, placed up on the balcony, Purves voice seemed to lack the firepower to dominate in the way we have come to expect. But perhaps this too was intended to confound our expectations. But certainly in Act Two, Purves’ Scarpia had a worthy opponent in Fanyo and their scenes kept the momentum of the production’s drama. Purves’ performance as Scarpia was so integrated with the singer’s dramatic persona that I wondered what the effect will be when Craig Colclough takes over for the final seven performances.

Alaric Green made a strong Angelotti, certainly not the weak and anxious creature we sometimes see. He would have made a worthy opponent of Scarpia. It helped that Green’s diction was excellent. Robert Hayward was a dignified Sacristan, here not required to indulge in any of the comic shtick sometimes expected. We have heard Hayward as Scarpia [at Opera North in 2023, see my review]

Puccini: Tosca (Act 2) – Christopher Purves, Osian Wyn Bowen – English National Opera 2026 [Photo: Ellie Kurttz]

Designer Evie Gurney had gone to town on the costumes for both Spoletta and Sciarrone, bringing out the 1980s in all its fashion horror. Osian Wyn Bowen and Christopher Nairne made a suitably oily pairing, both characters more interested in pleasing Scarpia than anything more admirable. The fact that in this production Scarpia was surrounded by vicious minions meant that neither Wyn Bowen nor Nairne was overly physical, yet both exuded something unsavoury. Ronald Nairne was the not unsympathetic jailer.

The role of the shepherd boy is shared between Elliot Michael and Tristan Meziere. I think we saw Elliot Michael singing the role, but there were two boys in the production. During act one, Purves’ Scarpia commanded a boy, carrying a bouquet, to accost Tosca and the lad then became an unwilling witness to the events. Act Three opened with a different boy singing, and doing so admirably. A lovely clear, true voice with fine projection of line and words, and no intrusive amplification.

The chorus was amplified with eight actors, and they saw far more action than is usual in the opera. The end of Act One was thrilling musically and credibly dramatic, but throughout the opera there were people appearing and disappearing, this was no quiet venue. The children’s chorus came from Marlborough Primary School, and they made a lively contribution to Act One.

Puccini: Tosca (Act 1) – English National Opera 2026 [Photo: Ellie Kurttz]

In the pit, conductor Ben Glassberg brought a stylish feel to the orchestra’s lithe and flexible performance. This was Puccini that did not try to be too big and stayed engagingly fluid, so that the drama of the piece progressed. Just as Miskimmon’s production avoided a lot of the regular stage business, so Glassberg made the music flow, carrying us away.