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Religious artworks suggest a church in a background slide used for Act I's Te Deum procession. This is the company's first such use of slides in a major production. (Photo provided by Indianapolis Opera)

A production department contact sheet shows images used as background slide displays for stage visuals during "Tosca." (Photo provided by Indianapolis Opera)

A background slide used early in Act III suggests the exterior of a European town. (Photo provided by Indianapolis Opera)

Baritone Victor Benedetti is singing Scarpia, the villian, for the first time. (Photo provided by Indianapolis Opera)

Soprano Stella Zambalis sings the title role. She has sung it in seven other productions and considers it "the best role that I do at this moment in time." (Frank Espich / The Star)

James Caraher, Indianapolis Opera artistic director, leads the principals in their first "sing-through" rehearsal for the production. (Frank Espich / The star)

Tenor Williams Johner, a "Tosca" veteran, is Cavaradossi, a painter and revolutionary who is the title character's lover.

Director Joachim Schamberger (left), stage manager Deborah Jo Barrett and assistant director Hal Spencer go over stage settings. (Frank Espich / The Star)

When Opera Omaha presented "Tosca," the stage looked like this for a church scene. The Indianapolis Opera will present the Puccini work March 14 and 16, but some of its personnel already have spent years on aspects of the local production. (Photo provided by Indianapolis Opera)

Putting on an opera is more than finding a couple of good singers and a string trio.

It involves hundreds of people, a mountain of money and literally years of advance planning. The anatomy of an opera would include much artistic creativity, but also enough logistics to make an Army sergeant major's head spin.

Indianapolis Opera is currently putting all of its efforts into Giacomo Puccini's "Tosca."

The story of Floria Tosca is a popular one in opera circles: Tosca, a famous opera singer, is in love with the painter Cavaradossi, a revolutionary. Scarpia, the police chief with a lustful eye for Tosca, forces her to choose between seeing her lover executed or giving herself to Scarpia. Then a series of tricks and double-crosses culminates in tragic results.

We took a peek behind the curtain to see what goes into the mix of this production.

The story

Some opera company leaders like to experiment with a well-known opera's storyline, changing the geographic setting or updating it to more modern times. Jim Caraher, artistic director and conductor for Indianapolis Opera, is not among them.

"There are people who like to put things on the moon and horse around and update and play with things," he said. "My take is, the closer you stick to how it was written, the safer.it is."

This is Caraher's 27th season with the opera. It will be his third staging of "Tosca" with Indianapolis, and at least his 10th "Tosca" overall.

"It's great music, and really exciting. It's romantic and lush, and it's bombastic," he said. "For some reason, everybody thinks of opera as being blood and guts and screaming. And in this one, everybody dies. The baritone gets stabbed, the tenor gets shot, and (Tosca) jumps off the wall at the end."

Puccini's scores are known for including lots of stage direction and notes on how the story should be interpreted, Caraher said.

An opera conductor works with the director in determining how the production is presented. Caraher says it's a give-and-take where his role is to reel things back in if the director's blocking or other ideas would detract musically.

Indianapolis Opera mostly brings in outside directors for its productions, including Joachim Schamberger for "Tosca," though a few locals have served.

The music

If Indianapolis Opera generally chooses to stick closely to the narrative, adherence to the musical score is even more precise.

"You do exactly what's on the page as best you can. That's one of the main things about Puccini. There are so many directions. He was a real master at fitting the theater to the music," Caraher said.

"Tosca" has three principal singers, four or five secondary parts, an orchestra of 60-plus and the 46-member chorus. Throw in the supernumeraries -- non-singing extras -- and a backstage crew of about 30 carpenters, electricians and other craftsmen, and the total manpower on the production approaches 200 people. The budget is not quite $300,000, about average for the company.

Orchestra members typically come from either the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra or Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra. It varies according to the performance rehearsals of those two groups; "Tosca" will be about three-quarters symphony members.

The musicians and chorus will rehearse for weeks and even months in advance, but the principal singers typically arrive less than three weeks before opening. And they get access to Clowes Hall just four days before the curtain rises on Friday night.

"Monday's the first official day we'll start rehearsing in there. Tuesday, they try on the costumes. The orchestra's there for the first time Wednesday. Dress rehearsal is Thursday, and Friday it's on. So it's tight," Caraher said.

The cast

Stella Zambalis, the soprano who sings the title role, has been booked as far as four years in advance of a production, and as little as a few days before curtain when another singer dropped out. Usually, singers are hired with about one year lead time. This will be her eighth turn as Tosca.

"I personally feel that Tosca is the best role that I do at this moment in time," she said. "This role isn't what I would say is a hard role musically. It's a demanding role vocally because there's a lot of screaming your head off. And she goes right from one scene into another."

Caraher casts the principal and secondary singers based on both ability and availability. "This is a big sing. It takes a good-size voice to be heard, not only to fill Clowes, but to be heard over a big orchestra. You have to know who's out there, and you can't get somebody too young or with a voice too small."

He aims for a mix of artists who have performed with Indianapolis Opera before and those who are new to this company, or are doing a particular opera for the first time. Like Zambalis, tenor William Joyner (Cavaradossi) is a "Tosca" veteran, while baritone Victor Benedetti, who plays the villain Scarpia, is tackling it for the first time.

"Now that (Victor) has gotten to a certain age, he's heading into the bigger, more dramatic (stage) of his career," Caraher said.

Principals are expected to arrive in town "off book," meaning they have all their lines and music memorized. Zambalis said that, when doing a particular opera for the first time, performers will rehearse on their own up to a year in advance, read up on the history of the piece and practice pronunciation.

"Singing diction is different than the spoken language. So just because you're singing in Italian does not mean that you sing it the same way that you speak it," she said. "You have to work it to death, really."

The life of an opera singer involves traveling all.over the globe for weeks at a time, which eventually burns out many performers, Zambalis said, though she still enjoys it.

When the weather is cold, she takes great care to bundle up to protect her voice. "Almost every singer I know at the very least covers their neck. We're really funny about our necks being covered."

It's common among singers to prefer going onstage with an empty stomach, but Zambalis finds she needs to eat a full meal shortly before curtain in order to have the energy to perform at her best.

Costumes

As a regional opera company, Indianapolis Opera does not have a large, permanent crew of set builders or costume designers. So it generally rents them from other companies. In the case of "Tosca," the costumes will come from Utah Symphony & Opera.

Fifteen years ago, artistic director Stephen Goldberg would receive a publication from Opera America, the national service organization for operas, about once every two years with listings of costume and set rentals. "It was out of date before the glue had dried on the envelope," he said.

Now Opera America has a Web site, with all the up-to-date offerings in one place. Goldberg still has to inquire one-on-one with each company, since prices are not listed. Rental companies often tailor the rental fee according to the size of the client.

With more than 100 costumed singers, chorus members and supernumeraries, it's a huge logistical challenge to get the right number of costumes that all fit, according to production stage manager Deborah Jo Barrett.

"They attempt to pull things close to size. In Utah, they actually do some of the alterations for us," she said.

Costumers from a local union are hired to handle the rest of the alterations and any last-minute repairs.

Performers' body shapes can vary widely, so a rental company may need multiple versions of outfits for lead performers.

"If they did it with a 5-foot-2 tenor who's 300 pounds -- which is not what we hire, but it's not unheard of -- and you have a guy who's a 6-foot-2 good-looking Hollywood type, that costume's not going to work," Caraher said.

"Tosca" does not have very many costume changes, Barrett said. If the time between changes is short, say less than seven or eight minutes, they'll set up a private area backstage.

Sets/props

The sets for "Tosca" represent a departure for Indianapolis Opera. Instead of elaborate backgrounds, "Tosca" will use three large panels onto which the scenes will be projected -- the first time they've used projections for a major production.

That makes the actual load-in from the trucks, which takes place the Monday before curtain, easier than usual, Barrett said. But the added complication of using projection makes it a challenging set design. There will also be different furniture moved in for each act.

The "Tosca" sets are being rented from Opera Omaha. Goldberg finds rental sets the same way he does the costumes. The company also may use the Opera America service for other materials such as chorus books, props and surtitles.

"Everybody uses surtitles nowadays -- simultaneous translation above the stage," he said.

Indianapolis Opera has a good supply of props, from dishes and eyeglasses to swords and other weapons. They may have to create, buy or rent other special props as needed. For example, since "Tosca" features a firing squad, they'll need reproductions of period rifles that will fire blank rounds. Those are rented from an outlet specializing in theatrical firearms.

In addition to renting sets and costumes, Indianapolis Opera will occasionally buy its own if the price is right. The opera also can partner with another company to jointly finance them, which gives them first priority for re-staging a production. Mainstay operas like "Tosca" and "Turandot" typically return to regional companies every few years.

The chorus

In 24 seasons with Indianapolis Opera and 81 career productions, chorus master John Schmid has overseen choruses as large as 100 and as small as two dozen. The size and composition of the chorus changes according to the opera and the performance venue.

With 36 members, plus 10 boys personally trained by Schmid, the chorus for "Tosca" is about average for Indianapolis Opera productions. Slots in the professional paid chorus are highly sought after.

"The chorus is auditioned annually in the late spring. And they are hired for each opera separately," he said. "Some do them all, some people do one or two that we choose based on what they're available for."

Typically, 80 to 100 singers are used in the chorus during a regular season. Schmid also holds auditions year-round to pick up any needed replacements.

Turnover is fairly regular. About one-quarter of the "Tosca" chorus will be new singers. Some regular singers such as Patrick McMonigle and Lynne Sylvester have been with the chorus as long as Schmid.

"There is no seat that's permanent. It's competitive. It's hired according to what we need," Schmid said.

The chorus makes two different appearances in Act I, according to Barrett, with some of them changing costumes from members of the clergy to church-goers. They're also heard off-stage in Act II as Scarpia interrogates Cavaradossi.

It's very common in opera for the chorus to sing off-stage, Schmid said. Earlier in his career, he would watch the main conductor through the curtain and conduct the chorus himself to keep in time with the orchestra. Now they watch Caraher on a video monitor.

Tosca

When: 8 p.m. March 14, 2 p.m. March 16.
Location: Clowes Hall, 4600 Sunset Ave.
Tickets: $25-$110.
Info: (317) 239-5151, or www.cloweshall.org