Some stages carry more weight than others. The Gran Teatro all’Aperto in Torre del Lago sits directly on the shore of Lake Massaciuccoli, a short walk from Villa Puccini, the house where Giacomo Puccini lived, composed, and is now buried. It is, quite literally, the place where Tosca and so many of his other masterworks were born. This summer, Florida Grand Opera General Director and CEO María Todaro stepped onto that stage not as a guest, but as a director, making her debut at the 72nd Festival Puccini with a new production of Tosca.
A Homecoming, Not a Departure
For Todaro, the assignment carried a personal weight that went well beyond the resume line. “There is something almost inevitable about this collaboration,” she said in a statement announcing the production. “Puccini’s music has always crossed every border effortlessly. Florida Grand Opera has carried his legacy for generations, and now, to return to the very lake where he composed, and to do so as a director, feels like a homecoming for all of us.”
The production is built on the original set designs of Carlo Centolavigna, part of a broader effort by the Fondazione Festival Pucciniano to bring the archive’s historic materials back to life on stage, a way of honoring the festival’s own past while placing a new creative voice behind the wheel.
The Cast and Crew
This year’s Tosca rotated through a formidable set of title-role sopranos across its run: Eleonora Buratto, Sonya Yoncheva, and Chiara Isotton each took a turn as Floria Tosca opposite tenors including Vittorio Grigolo and Francesco Meli as Cavaradossi. Carlo Montanaro conducted the Orchestra of the Puccini Festival, with lighting design by Valerio Alfieri, the Festival Choir prepared by choirmaster Marco Faelli, and the Children’s Choir under Sonia Franzese. Performances ran across the festival’s summer season at the open-air theater, the same “Teatro dei Quattromila” that has hosted Puccini’s operas for over ninety years.
A Bond Ten Years in the Making
The timing of Todaro’s debut wasn’t incidental. Miami, home to Florida Grand Opera, and Viareggio, the town that encompasses Torre del Lago, hold a formal twin-city relationship, one rooted in a shared coastal identity and a mutual devotion to the performing arts. That relationship had already deepened earlier in the year, when FGO staged its own centennial tribute to Turandot in Miami, drawing the leadership of the Fondazione Festival Pucciniano across the Atlantic to attend: President Fabrizio Miracolo, Artistic Director Angelo Taddeo, General Director Stefano Coluccini, and marketing director Andrea Maionchi all made the trip.
Much of the credit for nurturing that bond over the years belongs to people working quietly behind the scenes, among them Sandra Savini, a Viareggio resident, arts patron, and former FGO board member, and her husband Roberto Lottini, who have spent years serving as a living bridge between Versilia and Miami.
Reflecting on the experience of hosting the Puccini Festival’s leadership in Miami and then standing on their stage in Italy months later, Todaro didn’t mince words: “It confirmed what I have always believed: that we are not just colleagues separated by an ocean. We are family.”
What It Means for FGO
A directorial debut at one of Italy’s most storied opera festivals is a milestone in its own right. But for Florida Grand Opera, it’s also a signal: proof that a Miami-based company with an 85-year history has something genuinely valuable to offer the art form’s oldest homes, not just the other way around. Puccini’s music was written to travel. Thanks to this production, so, for a little while, was its interpreter.
