Pacfic Symphony's TOSCA Opens Tonight

Pacific Symphony performs Puccini's passionate and beautiful music in its full glory for the orchestra's second semi-staged opera production. The new opera-vocal initiative "Symphonic Voices" launched last season with three sold-old nights of "La Bohème," in an effort to bring opera back to Orange County following the loss of Opera Pacific. Inspired by Music Director Carl St.Clair's successful career as an opera conductor in Europe, the Symphony once again takes the music out of the pit and onto the stage to reveal the composer's brilliant orchestration, which paints the scenery and emotion behind the tragic tale. The production stars a cast of world-renowned opera singers, Pacific Chorale and the Southern California Children's Chorus.

Set amid the chaos of revolution during the Napoleonic wars of 1800 Rome, the story follows a glamorous singer, a victim of her own jealousy, in a willful battle with the cunning chief of police to save her lover, a painter, who is captured and sentenced to death for hiding his rebel friend. Sung in Italian with English supertitles, "Tosca" takes place tonight, Feb. 21; Saturday, Feb. 23; and Tuesday Feb. 26, at 8 p.m. in the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall; a preview talk with Alan Chapman begins at 7 p.m. Tickets are $25-$112; for more information or to purchase tickets, call (714) 876-2385 or visit www.PacificSymphony.org.