New Production of Puccini's Tosca Opens the 2009-10 Season of Great Performances at the Met

Karita Mattila makes her Met role debut in the title role and Luc Bondy directs his first Met staging

A new production of Puccini's Tosca starring Karita Mattila opens THIRTEEN's Great Performances at the Met's fourth season on PBS. Mattila sings the title role of Tosca for the first time outside her native Finland, opposite Marcelo Alvarez as Cavaradossi.

George Gagnidze is Scarpia and Paul Plishka is the Sacristan. Joseph Colaneri conducts, and acclaimed director Luc Bondy makes his Met debut with the production, which attracted extraordinary attention when it opened the Met's current season. Bondy, among the world's most renowned directors of opera and theater, has kept his Tosca in the Napoleonic era. "Directing singers in a realistic and precise way is more important than translating this kind of story to today," he says. "What I'd like to bring out in my production is that difference between blind passion and cold strategy." Mattila, who has collaborated with Bondy in the past, says, "Tosca uses her beauty as an asset in a man's world. But no matter how strong she is, her power has limits because she's a woman. This fragile side is what makes it interesting - and this is where the real work with the director begins."

The production is rated TV-PG and will air during primetime on THIRTEEN'S Great Performances at the Met in HD on Wednesday, December 16 at 9 p.m. EST on PBS (check local listings).

Great Performances at the Met is a presentation of THIRTEEN in association with WNET.ORG - one of America's most prolific and respected public media providers.

Great Performances at the Met: Tosca is the first of 10 productions airing this season during the 2009-2010 series. The performance is sung in Italian with English surtitles. Sets are designed by Richard Peduzzi, also in his company debut, costumes designed by Milena Canonero, and lighting designed by Max Keller.

Great Performances is funded by the Irene Diamond Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, Vivian Milstein, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, public television viewers and PBS. Corporate support for Great Performances at the Met is provided by Toll Brothers, America's luxury home-builder.

Visit Great Performances Online at www.pbs.org/gperf for additional information on this and other Great Performances programs. For the Met, Mia Bongiovanni and Elena Park are Supervising Producers, and Louisa Briccetti and Victoria Warivonchik are Producers. Peter Gelb is Executive Producer. For Great Performances, Bill O'Donnell is Series Producer; David Horn is Executive Producer.