La Fenice Opens Shanghai's New Grand Opera House with Tosca

Teatro La Fenice will inaugurate the new Shanghai Grand Opera House on October 22 with Puccini's Tosca — and both of its announced performances, on October 22 and 24, are already sold out.

The Venice company stays in Shanghai until October 25. The new house stands on the site that hosted the Expo, and La Fenice is the first opera company to play it. The production goes into Harmony Hall, the largest of the complex's three auditoriums, with more than two thousand seats. This will be the first opera staged there.

The cast is named. Soprano Anna Pirozzi sings the title role, tenor Gregory Kunde sings Cavaradossi, and baritone George Gagnidze takes Scarpia. Maestro Renato Palumbo conducts. Kunde is also the source of the announcement; the tenor circulated the details of the tour himself.

Joan Anton Rechi directs. Gabriel Insignares designed the sets, Giuseppe Palella the costumes, and Fabio Benetello the lighting.

What does it take to move an opera house to China?

The company numbers 234 people, travelling to China in three successive phases. The logistics are already largely done. Six containers carrying scenery, costumes, makeup materials and electrical equipment left Italy by ship and have arrived in Shanghai. A further 25 boxes — the orchestra's instruments and more costumes — travel with the company.

That scale is worth pausing on. Six containers and 234 personnel for two performances is the real cost of inaugurating a house with a full European production rather than a concert or a gala. Nothing in the announcement says whether the staging is new for Shanghai or a revival of an existing Fenice production; the creative team is named, but that question is left open.

The announcement is also silent on what the Shanghai Grand Opera House has programmed after Tosca. La Fenice holds the inaugural slot through October 25; who follows, and when, is not stated.

For La Fenice, the engagement extends a long history of international touring on top of its Venice home season. For Shanghai, it marks the operational opening of a venue built on the Expo site — a statement of intent that the city now has a house sized and equipped for full-scale imported opera.

If the sold-out houses are the measure, the intent lands. The test comes next: whether the calendar behind the inauguration sustains it.