The staging of Puccini's Tosca at the City Hall Theatre began on Monday for a three-day run.An ambitious project, it had all the passion one could want for Valentine's Day maybe more.Confined by the smaller stage, the action spilled beyond the proscenium, drawing the audience into the drama unfolding in front of them, or was adapted to suit the circumstances as in the case of Cavaradossi's execution and Tosca's dramatic suicide.The tragedy of the young prima donna Tosca was unfamiliar to me and, handicapped by my lack of Italian, I relied on the helpful programme notes to keep track of the plot. Relying solely on the facial expressions and the acting skills of the performers, I missed nuances of meaning or allusion in the libretto (the irony of the evil Scarpia standing Christ-like with arms out stretched at the end of Act I, for example).Others, like Scarpia's consumption of the apple as he plotted the consumption of Tosca in Act II, I did appreciate. I was, however, happy to be carried along by the emotion of the music.I enjoyed Chare Rochford's portrayal of the artist Cavaradossi, and Cheryl Enever's Tosca was intensely passionate. Scarpia, portrayed by Paul Keohone, came across as more brutish and less sly than I imagined the character to be. Spoletta and his heavies were suitably Mafioso-like and sinister in their double-breasted suits and fedoras as they wandered menacingly through the audience. It was a pleasant surprise to recognise young ladies of the St John's Youth Choir portraying the cathedral choir in Act 1.Puccini's Tosca was originally set in 1800 when the Kingdom of Naples' control of Rome was threatened by the armies of the French Republic led by Napoleon, and premiered in January 1900 at a time when Italy was again experiencing a period of political and social unrest.The tragedy of Tosca is that she allows jealousy to turn to suspicion and betrayal, and her private emotions to have public consequences. She finds herself caught up in a web of lies and deceit which bind her and other innocents more tightly the more she struggles to escape.To underscore the political uncertainty and make the atmosphere of tension and mistrust more immediate to a modern audience, this production was set in Fascist Rome, which, I believe, worked for the most part. For me, it made Tosca's betrayal of the escaped political prisoner/freedom fighter Angelotti to the scheming Scarpia more significant.The set was well-designed. Late afternoon sun filtering through the dust motes of a dim cathedral interior (created by a more than ample use of incense) was effectively achieved with a minimum of set the ancient ionic columns created by hanging panels and dramatic lighting.The panels became blood-red banners in the office of the fascist chief of police in the second act, the stark lighting design underscoring the terror of the place. The spartan cell of a damp prison was also deftly conveyed, though the forbidding battlements of the Castel Sant'Angelo were missing.Just as the action seemed too large, so too on occasion did the voices seem to overwhelm the space additional amplification unnecessary in such an intimate theatre and unfortunately a piano, organ and percussion were not able to adequately convey what has been described as “the power of its score and the inventiveness of its orchestration”.Nevertheless, it was an interesting evening.