Music: Comrade Scarpia

The set represented a sleekly modern office-apartment equipped with a pushbutton intercom system and a radio. The booted, black-uniformed officer listened for a' while to a local radio singer, questioned a corduroy-jacketed "freedom fighter," and chased a redhead in green strapless evening gown about his desk. 'What was going on? Answer: A modern-dress production of Puccini's Tosca.

When Cleveland's Musicarnival decided to do Tosca, it called on the Metropolitan Opera's Assistant Manager John Gutman to tool it up for modern tastes. Gutman, an old hand at translating and adapting opera librettos, decided to switch the locale from the Rome of 1800 to...

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