It's opera with stunts! (From Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard)

It's opera with stunts!

ELLEN KENT and Opera International present the Chisinau National Opera in Tosca and Turandot, two of Puccini's great masterpieces featuring full orchestra and chorus, at Bristol Hippodrome next week.

Tosca will be performed on Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday, February 10, 11 and 14, while Turandot can be seen on Thursday and Friday, February 12 and 13. All performances begin at 7.15pm.

This production of Tosca proved an immense success when it toured in spring 2002; now it returns to delight audiences once again.

This most popular of operas, with its tender and moving arias Recondita Armonia, Vissi d'atre and E Lucevan le Stella, is a heady mixture of true love, torture and treachery, with two of the best roles for tenor and soprano, plus a pure evil villain as the baritone.

The sets for Tosca are rich and lavish with beautiful period Italian tapestries, chandeliers and costumes representing Rome in the early nineteenth century.

This new production has a large cast and full orchestra, with a boys' choir inside the church of Sant' Andrea della Valle in Act One. A special stunt artist doubling as Tosca will be jumping from a great height to bring the performance to a truly blood-curdling finale.

Turandot is the tale of the cold-hearted princess, who is surrounded by suitors facing death if they fail to answer her riddle correctly, and of the one man who can melt the ice in her heart.

This opera has been a firm favourite with audiences ever since Pavarotti's rendition of Nessun Dorma was used by the BBC for the World Cup in 1990.

This sumptuous traditional production includes sets and costumes by one of America's leading designers, Alexander Okun, who is currently scoring a major success with Disney. Ellen Kent has also included a fabulous Kathakali dance sequence, based on the South Indian Kathakali Devil Dance portraying Turandot's thirst for the blood of her failed suitors.

To book tickets for Tosca or Turandot call 0870 607 7500 (subject to Ticketmaster booking fee).