What is TOSCA - The Technopera?

At the beginning of 2007 I decided to create an opera using techno/dance music as the main musical medium.

In consultation with my partner, Beth Allen, we decided to recreate Puccini’s masterpiece, Tosca, with this concept in mind.

The plot needed to be reset, so we went for current day Rome rather then the original placed it in Rome, 1800.

The storyline and characters needed some work after this. I kept in mind the singers available to me (as Puccini did) when resetting the characters. Some of the males became females.

The script then needed to be completely redone. Steven Kenyon was an enormous help here. Currently the script stands at 41 pages, after many, many rewrites (and still more to come).

I then started working through the score and selecting the great melodies that I wanted to use with the characters. Sometimes I needed to change the original rhythms, sometimes they stayed the same. I also examined the score to find interesting chord progressions that would be appropriate for the minimalistic style that is techno.

Eventually the score was complete and stands currently at 88 min in length with an interval approximately half way through.

From the beginning I had a strong intention of including artwork in the project. Originally I wanted to have an artist draw pictures in the style of Frank Miller’s Sin City to convey the action of this crime melodrama. However it turned out to be too much work. Sarah Ellerton, one of the artists contacted, designed a fantastic logo though.

So we then decided to take photographs of actors who looked perfect for the characters and set them up with costumes, props and sets to recreate the look of the whole show. Over two weeks we took about 3,700 photos and have processed these through Photoshop and then animated them in Premiere.

So the live show involves this dvd projecting onto a screen, the singers underneath singing live to the backing. Also there are musicians augmenting the score playing in the pit, and a chorus, and me conducting.

I look forward to seeing you at one of our shows in Mackay, Rockhampton, Bundaberg or Gladstone.

Kim