The spectacle is the thing

Ellen Kent's productions go where others daren't. Turandot and Tosca are no exception

Ellen Kent adores spectacle. She brought us the horse in Carmen; then the water garden in Madam Butterfly. Her Rigoletto featured a pair of Afghan hounds. When she brings back Tosca this weekend with the Chisinau National Opera from Moldova, she promises us a dazzling leap of death.

You have to hand it to Ellen Kent and her company, Opera and Ballet International. Production values don't always match the dream, but she takes opera where others daren't. "We took opera to the Hackney Empire years ago, long before its refurbishment," she says with a pioneer's pride; "and next month we'll form part of its superbly restored Matcham auditorium's reopening events."

She is playing all of the Ambassador Theatre Group's venues - Brighton, Stoke-on-Trent, Milton Keynes, Woking, Glasgow; Londoners can catch her in Wimbledon and Richmond. Opera in Leicester? Kent will be there. Aberdeen and Dundee? It's Kent again. Bradford, Carlisle, Grimsby, Halifax, Ipswich, Tunbridge Wells? Watch out, it's Kent. Fancy a splash by the sea? Torquay, Hastings, Lowestoft, Bourne-mouth, Blackpool.

Midway through this tour, Kent will take Carmen to Qatar. Such touring, she argues, builds a new appetite and new audiences for opera. And foreign-currency-earning, as Chisinau's opera director, Mihai Cocieru, points out, is crucial to this emerging country on Europe's fringes. Even the ordinary opera punter can sponsor the arts in a part of the old Soviet Union with a thirst for culture.

Moldova, interwoven with both the Russian and Romanian traditions, produces some glorious singers for Ellen. Her stalwarts - the baritones Petru Racovita, Vladimir Dragos and Boris Materinco, tenors such as Akhmed Agadi and Alexei Repchinsky and the sopranos Natalia Margarit and Kievan Larysa Malych, plus the actress mezzo Tatiana Busuioc - can be real hits with an audience. One Cavaradossi to relish, Ellen says, is the Georgian tenor Teimuraz Gugushvili. Even Georgia with its "Velvet revolution" out of the way, yearns to be part of Europe.

But for Kent the spectacle is the thing: "I've added elements of the South Indian Kathakali demon dance to the Turandot ballet this time," she points out. And what about that famous leap? "I was at the Liverpool Empire with my dogs, two falcons and an eagle [all for Rigoletto] and there was a stunt man throwing himself off Liverpool Empire for a scene in Holly-oaks. I thought, why not have a stunt artist turn Tosca's final leap off Castell San Angelo into something really breathtaking?

"So I signed their stunt man, Rod Woodruff, and he brought along his daughter, Montana. Between them, they'll manage the effect of Tosca's leap.It should be spectacular." Soap opera into opera: could be fun.

'Tosca' opens at the New (formerly Apollo) Theatre, Oxford (0870 606 3500) on Sunday; 'Turandot' at the Empire Theatre, Sunderland (0191-514 2517) on 7 Feb. Tour runs to 2 July (www.ellenkent.com)