The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, central London have been expanding their access offer to blind and partially sighted people by providing touch tours, live and recorded audio described performances for their opera and ballet productions.

For the recent run of their production of Puccini’s Tosca during July 2024 not only was there recorded audio description for every performance but touch tours were available prior to the performances on Tuesday 16 and Friday 19 July 2024. 

RNIB Connect Radio’s Toby Davey along with a number of blind and partially sighted opera patrons joined the touch tour on Tuesday 16 July 2024 to explore the set, costumes and props prior to that night’s performance of Tosca with recorded audio description.  

After the touch tour and during the second interval of that night’s performance of Tosca Toby chatted with Audrey and Bakul, two visually impaired opera lovers, to find out how they found both the touch tour and the performance of Tosca with recorded audio description.

Prior to the touch tour Toby also caught up with Paul Adams, Access Project Manager at the Royal Opera House and Audio Describer Alice Gilmour who wrote and recorded the audio description for Tosca along with leading that night’s touch tour to find out a bit more about how the performances of Tosca with the recorded audio description had been received by visually impaired people so far  and how Alice and Paul were preparing for that night’s touch tour. 

In Toby’s feature about Tosca at the Royal Opera House you will also hear recordings of the touch tour, extracts from Alice’s recorded audio description and parts of the Royal Opera House’s production of Tosca.

For more about access at the Royal Opera House including details about audio described performances and touch tours do contact their Access Box Office on 020 7304 4000, email [email protected] or visit the access pages of the Royal Opera House website - https://www.rbo.org.uk/visit/accessibility

Image shows the stage with the curtains drawn at the Royal Opera House, very large deep red curtains with gold embroidery of the Royal Family crest in the middle at the top, golden tassels with white and gold decoration on the walls around the stage.