Tosca

In the rapidly fading light of a Verona evening, the sound of the first menacing chords of Puccini's Tosca set the clock ticking for a sequence of dramatic events that begin at one specific time and place in history, Rome, on the morning of 17 June 1800 and end tragically at dawn the following day. The vast spaces of the arena call for big gestures, and producer and designer Hugo de Ana's opening imagery evokes a Rome of outsize sculpture - a sword, a vast hand holding a rosary with ominous metal links - that recalls the colossal statue of Emperor Constantine created to stand in the Roman forum in the fourth century.