Gerald Finley makes his role debut as arch-villain Baron Scarpia at the Royal Opera House

Here is a man, Rome’s Chief of Police, who actually keeps a torture chamber in his apartment at the Palazzo Farnese. 

Canadian baritone Gerald Finley, who makes his role debut as Scarpia in the Royal Opera’s revival of Tosca on January 15, says the detail of the ultimate torture chamber adjacent to the living/ dining room points up how different is the character from others he has sung in the bass-baritone range. 

“I’ve tended to take more lyric and sympathetic roles, with the exception of Nick Shadow in Rake’s Progress who cloaks his evil with elegance.

“Scarpia is perceived by the other characters in the opera as a monster; evil, lustful and vengeful.  

“He has a psychopath’s charm and certainty of success. 

“Psychopaths are wonderfully adept at observing what normal people do and mimicking their behaviour to seem sympathetic. 

“The best piece of advice I was given about Scarpia was, ‘remember he’s enjoying every moment’.” 

What brings Scarpia down is his certainty that he has Tosca in his power, as she bargains to save her lover Cavaradossi from execution.  

Joseph Calleja sings the role of Cavaradossi, while the Tosca who takes a knife to her tormentor is Finley’s fellow Canadian Adrianne Pieczonka, who has won international acclaim in the title role. 

This is the first time she and Finley have worked together, though they have met over the years on the opera circuit. 

They share an unusual honour, in that their heads are on different Canadian postage stamps, chosen to represent Canadian opera during last year’s 150th anniversary of the Canadian Confederation. 

Gerald Finley was born in Montreal in 1960 and lived in Ottawa before coming to Britain to study at King’s College, Cambridge and the Royal College of Music in London.  

His first professional role was in the chorus of Glyndebourne Festival Opera. 

The importance of the roles increased over the years throughout Europe, Canada and the United States, where he made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 1998 as Papageno in Mozart’s The Magic Flute. 

Other Mozartian roles included Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Count Almaviva. 

In 2011 he sang the pivotal role of Hans Sachs in Wagner’s mighty Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg at Glyndebourne to critical acclaim.  

He has created roles in new operas; among them the title role in John Adams’s Doctor Atomic, about the reputed “father of the atomic bomb” J Robert Oppenheimer. 

Working with a living composer reminds him that all operas were contemporary at the time when they were created. 

Doctor Atomic’s Faustian theme revolves around the search for knowledge and it ends at the first atomic test, with the moment of revelation of radiation’s destructive force. 

Finley was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2017 Birthday Honours for services to opera.  

His work for musical charities has included taking part in a climb to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro for the Musicians’ Benevolent Fund. After Tosca, where the title role is shared with Angela Gheorghiu and Martina Serafin, Finley sings Amfortas in Parsifal, before a three-week tour of North America. 

After that it’s a two-and-a-half month break at home in Tunbridge Wells, where he lives with his second wife Heulwen Keyte, music agent for crossover stars including Alfie Boe and Alexander Armstrong, and their two-year-old daughter. 

Having a young daughter, he jokes, keeps his feet firmly on the ground: “There is no room for two divas!” 

● Tosca, Royal Opera House, London WC2. Tickets 020 7304 4000/roh.org.uk; £34-£195.