Tosca and John Bell were always going to be an interesting combination. And after Christopher Alden’s generally despised monochrome production of 2010, featuring people crawling on top of wardrobes and the like, Opera Australia were rather in need of a repertoire-worthy staging. Cheryl Barker famously withdrew from Alden’s take on Puccini’s “shabby little shocker”, citing artistic differences, so it was with some curiosity that a matinee crowd got to see her in action taking over the role from Greek soprano Alexia Voulgaridou.

The first thing to say is that Bell has clearly done his homework on the time and place. His deeply felt updating of the action to 1943 Nazi occupied Rome is both appropriate and striking, bringing what can seem a schlock costume drama into sharp focus and reminding us of how Puccini’s issues of freedom, love, jealousy and tyranny still resonate today. If you felt the Nazi’s in La Bohème were an irrelevant add-on for effect, try this. In Bell’s hands their presence really is what the opera is all about. And that’s not all. He brings years of experience to addressing the nuts and bolts of acting. Seldom do you see such finely crafted relationships and attention...