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See How the Met Built ‘Tosca,’ Its Biggest Production of the Season

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Credit...Todd Heisler/The New York Times

Rome wasn’t built in a day. When the Metropolitan Opera decided to create a new production of Puccini’s “Tosca” true to the work’s Roman settings, the company’s army of artists and artisans started work nearly a year before its opening night, on New Year’s Eve.

There were frescos to paint, statues to sculpt, costumes to sew. Watching the creation of the new “Tosca” served as a reminder of the work that hundreds of people do to bring grandeur to grand opera — and showed the extent to which the Met, which was recently rocked by sexual misconduct accusations against its music director emeritus, James Levine, is a group effort.

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Credit...Todd Heisler/The New York Times
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Credit...Todd Heisler/The New York Times

Behind its travertine facade, the Met is an opera factory. In a backstage workshop on the fourth floor, scenic artists sculpted the Archangel Michael out of steel, plywood, foam, fiberglass and aqua resin, getting it ready for its perch atop the Castel Sant’Angelo in the final act. With stars, choristers, soldiers, priests and more to clothe, nearly two and a quarter miles of fabric went into the “Tosca” costumes.

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Credit...Todd Heisler/The New York Times
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Credit...Todd Heisler/The New York Times
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Credit...Todd Heisler/The New York Times

In a painting shop in the shadow of the Bruckner Expressway in the Bronx, a crew of scenic artists worked for two sweltering weeks in July copying and enlarging an oil painting by John Macfarlane, who designed the sets and costumes. They were creating the 3,375-square-foot show curtain that will greet audience members when they enter the Met’s auditorium.

The artists created a grid in which two inches of painting became four feet of curtain. They traced the outlines in charcoal, then used paintbrushes attached to bamboo poles and went through roughly 50 gallons of paint.

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Credit...Todd Heisler/The New York Times

The stakes are high for the new “Tosca,” directed by David McVicar. It is aimed in part at operagoers who rebelled when the Met replaced its beloved, opulent 1985 Franco Zeffirelli staging of with a sparer, grittier one by Luc Bondy in 2009.

Building the sets is hard — and so is storing them. Unlike in a Broadway theater, where a show is loaded in and can stay put until the end of its run, the Met is putting on several operas at any given time. Above, a set piece is stored three levels below the stage.

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Credit...Todd Heisler/The New York Times
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Credit...Todd Heisler/The New York Times

To recreate the gilded Baroque splendor of the Church of Sant’Andrea della Valle, where the first act is set, the Met’s artisans used 77 rolls of gold leaf. Many details won’t be caught by even the most powerful opera glasses — but now that the Met simulcasts its performances to cinemas around the world through its Live in HD series, every opera must be ready for its close-up.

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Credit...Todd Heisler/The New York Times
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Credit...Todd Heisler/The New York Times

Each August — after American Ballet Theater’s spring season has ended, and before the opera season starts — the Met holds technical rehearsals for its new productions and the sets are put onstage for the first time.

Above, the production team experimented with lighting the curtain. The seats in the auditorium were transformed into makeshift desks, where Sarah Ina Meyers, a stage director, was among those working.

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Credit...Todd Heisler/The New York Times
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Credit...Todd Heisler/The New York Times

All told, some 182 costumes were created for the new “Tosca,” some sewn backstage in the Met’s costume shop and others in Toronto; Racine, Wis.; and London. Three hundred yards of ecclesiastical lace were used in the procession at the end of the first act — 24 yards for the cardinal’s robe alone.

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Credit...Todd Heisler/The New York Times
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Credit...Todd Heisler/The New York Times

The opera house even has its own milliner: Janet Linville. Above, she measures a member of the chorus, Elizabeth Brooks, for a hat.

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Credit...Todd Heisler/The New York Times

The opera’s climax, atop the Castel Sant’Angelo, unfolds beneath the watchful eye of the Archangel Michael, which has now been painted to resemble the real statue, and in front of a cyclorama backdrop of 4,950 square feet of painted muslin. Above, riflemen take aim at the tenor Vittorio Grigolo, playing the painter Cavaradossi.

One of the most important pieces of the set is never seen by the audience: a large wooden box filled with 2,000 six-inch foam cubes. The foam provides a soft landing for Sonya Yoncheva, the soprano singing the title role — allowing her to make her climactic leap off the castle and still return in one piece for curtain calls.

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Credit...Todd Heisler/The New York Times

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