Tosca: Meet The Cast – Jamie Woollard

British bass Jamie Woollard stars as Cesare Angelotti in Oxford International Opera’s upcoming production of Puccini’s opera. He is a Samling Artist and was a BBC Music Magazine ‘Rising Star’ in 2023. Woollard is the next member of our cast for you to get to know…

Who is your character, Cesare Angelotti?

Cesare Angelotti is a former consul of the Roman republic, established by the French in 1798, but he has been taken prisoner by troops of the Kingdom of Naples, who are de facto rulers of Rome in the absence of French military occupation. As the events of Tosca commence in 1800, Angelotti has escaped prison and is following plans laid out by his sister to stay hidden from the authorities. 

Angelotti is in a state of constant fear and exhaustion when he appears in Tosca; what’s it like playing a character like that?

Most recently, I have tended to play more even-paced characters such as Colline, Snug, and Sarastro, and so it will be an exciting change for me. I hope I can achieve that balance of fatigue mixed with the alertness and panic of an escaped prison convict, which isn’t in my personal life experience to date! 

How do you bring those emotions to a character so central to the story, but whose time on stage is relatively brief?

Angelotti is the first character we meet and the music that starts the opera is very intense, so it feels important to bring a lot of dramatic energy whilst avoiding caricature. I find it helpful to imagine my character’s situation in my preparation, but in the moment of performance I try to react to what my character is experiencing as if new. 

What would you like the audience to feel about Angelotti by the end of the opera?

Hopefully people won’t blame Angelotti for the events that follow, though there is a case for this! It is Cavaradossi’s loyalty to Angelotti which ignites his conflict with Scarpia, but you feel someone with Cavaradossi’s integrity would probably come up against Scarpia anyway. I’d like the audience to feel that Angelotti and Cavaradossi have a close relationship, which will help build the tension of Cavaradossi’s choice in Act 2.

Another upcoming performance of yours is in Death in Venice, which must be a very different style, Puccini’s composition compared to Britten’s. In what ways does your approach change when taking on these different roles?

In some ways, there are actually many similarities, such as the realism of their characters and the dramatic and musical detail within the score, so for both composers it is perhaps the initial study of their intentions that is most important. I performed La Bohème and A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the past year; for the Puccini it was the Italian itself which took most of my focus, whereas for the Britten it was the harmonic language, and also, in the case of Dream, trying not to laugh at the other mechanicals! 

Cover photo by Julian Guidera

Find tickets to the Oxford International Opera’s performance of Tosca here

Join the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra alongside international opera stars for the brand-new, fully-staged production of Oxford International Opera, where we will bring Puccini’s Tosca to the stage of the New Theatre in Oxford. Featuring internationally renowned opera singers such as Sir Bryn Terfel, Carmen Giannattasio and Saimir Pirgu, the Oxford Philharmonic will be the fourth protagonist and extra voice on the stage.

The Principal Donor of this production is the Laidlaw Opera Trust.