TOSCA

 WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS!  DO NOT READ IF YOU WISH TO DISCOVER THE STORY FOR YOURSELF!

Two weeks ago saw the performance of Giacomo Puccini's opera Tosca.  It has practically everything your could ask for in a thriller: Great music, lots of suspense, action, and a fairly sizable body count at the end.  
     This opera is written in the Verismo or Realism style.  That means that the music is not going to go in for a lot of fancy flashes and ornamentation.  Also, Puccini wanted the settings to be real places in Rome; namely the Church of Sant'Andrea della Vale, Farnese Palace (now the French Embassy), and Castel Sant'Angelo.

The story is set during the Napoleonic wars, and revolves around two lovers and a sadistic baron.  Floria Tosca is a passionate actress-singer who lives for the love of the painter Mario Cavaradossi and for art.  She is also very prone to jealousy.  Baron Scarpia takes advantage of this jealousy and captures Cavaradossi.  He then gives Tosca a choice: Unless she consents to sex with Scarpia, her boyfriend dies.  

Act 1 takes place inside the Church of Sant'Andrea della Vale.  The church is a Baroque piece of architecture, so the set was designed accordingly.  Cesare Angelotti, a political prisoner, has escaped from Castel Sant'Angelo and is hides in the chapel.  The sacristan comes in, followed shortly thereafter by Mario Cavaradossi.  Cavaradossi is working on a portrait of Mary Magdalene, using the Marchesa Attavanti (who was praying in the church the day before) as the model.  But no matter what woman he's painting, he is in love with only woman; Floria Tosca.  This production had the sacristan hitting the bottle a little too hard and trying to snag the wine from Cavaradossi's  lunch basket.  It also had the portrait of Mary Magdalene unfinished.  
        The Love Duet was done mostly at the dais.  After Tosca leaves, Cavaradossi talks with Angelotti before the two escape at the sound of the cannon firing; warning that a prisoner has fled.  The sacristan is trying to get the choir boys to relax as they celebrate the Italians' victory in battle, complete with the younger boys fighting with paintbrushes.  The Moment Scarpia entered, however, all the cheer just left the room.  This production gave his two henchmen, Spoletta and Sciarrone, an eye patch and a limp respectively (playing up the evil henchmen archetype from the old melodramas).  He plays upon Tosca's jealousy by brandishing the fan left by the Marchesa Attavanti.  Angelotti clearly forgot it in his haste to escape.  Tosca, when she says to the portrait "You will not have him, tonight!", throws the fan at it.  And meanwhile the church is beginning to fill with worshipers.  As Tosca leaves, Scarpia sings about how he'll kill her lover and take her as his own.  As the Mass continues, Scarpia exaggeratedly tries to look pious.  

Act 2 had Scarpia's apartment very sparsely furnished, with a writing desk in the upper left, a fainting couch in the center (no doubt where he rapes women), and his dining table on the right.  He sings about how he prefers to violently conquer women rather than be gentle about it.  And all this while he's relaxing on his fainting couch!  It was as if he plots evil deeds while washing his face in the morning!  Tosca is singing in a new cantata just outside.  Scarpia first interrogates Cavaradossi until Tosca enters.  He then tortures Cavaradossi and Tosca simultaneously; he uses the physical torture on Cavaradossi as psychological torture for Tosca.  Finally, unable to take it much longer, Tosca blurts out Angelotti's hiding place.  Naturally when Cavaradossi finds out he's incredibly ticked; but this is interrupted when Sciarrone enters with bad news: the news of the victory at Marengo was premature.  The French have won the battle.  Cavaradossi struggles to get to his feet as he gloats over the sudden turn of events.  He is taken away. 
       Then Scarpia offers Tosca his deal: If she will consent to sex with him, he will let her lover free.  He even tries to rape her right then and there, taunting her when they here the drums outside.  Tosca is horrified and begins praying, asking God why this has come to pass.  Spoletta enters and reports that Angelotti committed suicide rather than be captured.  Tosca then nods her consent to Scapria, who says that Cavaradossi will be shot in a mock execution like one Count Palmieri before him.  Tosca then asks for a pass out of the country.  But while he's writing the safe conduct, Tosca notices a knife on the table.  She decides to kill him rather than let him rape her.  In this production, she hid the knife behind her back.  Scarpia rolled up his sleeves as he approached her and just as he takes her in his arms, that's when she stabs him to death.  After she kills him, she riffles through the papers on the writing desk, looking for the paper.  She finds it his hand, and then leaves.  

Act 3 took place on the ramparts of Castel Sant'Angelo.  Guards paced the scene as they did their patrol.  The sun was rising and in the distance was Saint Peter's Basilica. In the distance is heard the voice of a shepherd boy.   This was one of Puccini's dramatic devices.  He would put in a brief irrelevant tune of someone just going about their own day-to-day business as a way to highlight the drama that's taking place onstage.  The jailer (played by the manager of the Life 102.5 radio station in this production), had his little desk off to the on which was his lantern and a single piece of paper.  Cavaradossi entered, his hands bound and still bloody from the torture he endured.  He asks the jailer for permission to write a final letter to Tosca.  The jailer allows him (naturally).  Cavaradossi starts writing a few lines and then becomes overwhelmed with emotion as he recalls a tryst he had with Tosca.  Tosca rushes in with the safe conduct and tells of her ordeal with Scarpia.  Cavaradossi praises the hands that committed murder for his sake.  Although I'd heard it before, hearing it live was slightly jarring.  They sing of what they think is a happy future awaiting them.  Tosca coaches Cavaradossi on how to fall after tellng him what Scarpia told her.  The jailer says it's time and Cavaradossi prepares for the supposedly fake execution.  The soldiers fire their guns and Cavaradossi falls.  In this production he fell to his knees before hitting the ground completely.  After the men leave, Tosca goes to rouse him, only to find that Scarpia's promise was a lie: The supposedly fake execution was real.  Spoletta and the soldiers go to arrest Tosca, with one soldier aiming his gun at her.  She falls backwards to her death off the ramparts into the river Tiber after challenging Scarpia to meet her before God.  Translation: "Let God decide which one of us is the bigger sinner!".  

The soprano never wavered in her performance.  Neither did the baritone.  The tenor started out kind of weak in the fist act, but reached perfection in the final act.  I hope Madison opera does this one again.