La Tosca

Tosca is the opera I savored Saturday at the movie theater, brought to me live in high-definition by the Metropolitan Opera. I've posted about these broadcasts before--I look forward to every one and try not to miss any. I was especially looking forward to Tosca. This opera has a reputation as a shocker, and some critics think even gratuitously shocking. It's an emotional roller coaster in high art with deception, an almost-rape, a suicide, and a murder or two. The music is delicious with two famous arias ("Vissi d'arte" and "Recondito armonia") and a big production number in the "Te Deum."

The opera Tosca is based on a play named La Tosca by the Parisian Victorien Sardou. The Tosca character is a mature, independent opera singer, not the usual innocent ingenue we often find in operas. That Puccini kept the racy (for 1900) realism of the play in his opera is no surprise. The man led a very interesting life with wives, mistresses, and two sons with the same name. The details are still being sorted out.

Back to the opera, Patricia Racette sang the title role Saturday, radiant in that red dress, cloak, and gloves in Act II.

Her "Vissi d'arte" would stop traffic, and I think that's the idea since the plot at that point has Tosca being tortured and we're expecting she won't be able to avoid getting raped by the villainous Scarpia. Our diva-hero does wriggle out of that situation ultimately, the story moves on, and she gets to wear a stunning blue dress in Act III. Years ago, this was Maria Callas's signature role.

Tosca's boyfriend is Cavaradossi, an artist who we first meet as he paints a portrait of Mary Magdalene on a wall of the interior of the Church of Sant'Andrea della Valle in Rome. In Saturday's performance, this part was sung by Roberto Alagna. Here is R.A. singing his big aria, "Recondito Armonia" in another production:

I'm going to restrain myself from writing an entire post on Roberto Alagna's smile, and I'm not even going to mention it. Oops, I guess I did. Well, he gave us a fine performance Saturday of a part he has sung many times before in many other productions. During his intermission interview with Renee Fleming, he mentioned that Cavaradossi in the play La Tosca was Italo-French just like him. He was born to sing this part, I guess.

The third main character is the Baron Scarpia, a very mean man who was Rome's police chief. No one likes him. He tried to extort certain favors from Tosca in exchange for pardoning her beau Cavaradossi. He's the kind of character that gets booed at his curtain call, not because the performance was bad, but because the portrayal of the character was so believably evil. This opera story has a political perspective which involves the hated Napoleon Bonaparte just before he was exiled. Scarpia was a Napoleon follower, reason enough for the other characters to hate him even before they fall victim to his evil and creepy personality.

I left the theater in a state of operatic euphoria, feeling that I had just seen a killer AH-per-ah. Literally 'killer,' as few of our characters survived the story. Go see it. And, by the way, if you are interested in learning more about Puccini's roller-coaster passionate life and his operas which define the genre for so many opera lovers, I feel comfortable recommending this book even though I haven't finished reading it:

Berger, William. Puccini without Excuses: A Refreshing Reassessment of the World's Most Popular Composer. NY: Vintage, 2005.