ExecutedToday.com » 1800: Mario Cavaradossi, Tosca’s lover 1800: Mario Cavaradossi, Tosca’s lover June 18th, 2011 Headsman It’s at dawn on this date in 1800 that the republican Mario Cavaradossi is shot at Castel Sant’Angelo in the climax of the Puccini opera Tosca . This opera was adapted from the play La Tosca , by Victorien Sardou . That author does this site the considerable favor of exactly dating the action; a character at the end of Act 1, Scene 1 announces , “this evening, 17 June, a celebration at the Palazzo Farnese in honor of this victory.” The remaining story unfolds over that night and into the next morning. En route to Marengo: Jacques-Louis David ‘s heroic picture of Napoleon crossing the Alps comes from this campaign. “This victory” worth the proposed palazzo party is the Austrian defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Marengo during Bonaparte’s 1800 invasion of Italy. But there’s a minor problem.

Said seesaw battle went not to Austria but (decisively) to Napoleon, after a late French rally. The action of Tosca takes place in a Rome which has received an initial, incorrect notice of Austrian victory. This is of particular import in the Eternal City because it’s under the temporary receivership of the Hapsburg Queen Maria Carolina , a virulent foe of the French Republic as befits a sister of Marie Antoinette . (France-supported Italian revolutionaries had already deposed Maria Carolina once; the Corsican’s reappearance on her peninsula gave her good cause to fear that it would happen again.*) At any rate, “Queen Caroline” and her husband Ferdinand were not above spilling blood to hold down the republican elements in Rome. Harold Acton pegged their harvest at “8,000 political prisoners … 105 were condemned to death, six of whom were reprieved.” Our date’s fictional principal would reckon among those. We meet him as a painter with subversively liberal inclinations, in love with the titular heroine as she with him — but opposed by police chief Scarpia: his profession is to pursue revolutionaries; his passion, to pursue Tosca.

Scarpia captures, and tortures, Cavaradossi for aiding an escaped official of the recently destroyed Roman Republic , and forces Tosca to yield herself to him in exchange for her lover’s life.** This is Tosca’s aria lamenting her position: One thing: because Scarpia doesn’t want to be implicated in the release of a dangerous radical, he insists on a mock-execution in which the prisoner will appear to be shot and feign death, the better to spirit Cavaradossi away and on to happily-ever-after.† And because Scarpia is a villain, he arranges for his rival’s “mock” execution to be not so mock after all … to the suicidal horror of Tosca. Aaaaaand curtain. There are scads more Tosca excerpts on YouTube. Here’s an Italian-English libretto, and here a handy summary. * It would, in fact, happen again. ** Okay, to agree to yield herself to him. Tosca stabs Scarpia to death when he rises to collect her promised virtue. † “In the manner of Count Palmieri,” Scarpia instructs his subaltern.

If this is a reference to a real case, we are not aware of it; there was a royalist Marquis Palmieri executed in Naples in 1807 by Napoleon’s brother, Joseph . On this day.. Nicassio, Ten Things You Didn't Know About Tosca Ten Things You Didn't Know about Tosca by Susan Vandiver Nicassio author of Tosca's Rome: The Play and the Opera in Historical Perspective Puccini's Tosca, one of the most popular operas in the repertoire ever since its January 14, 1900 premiere, is a violent drama based on Victorien Sardou's hit play La Tosca, which was written as a star vehicle for the famous French actress Sarah Bernhardt. In the translation from play to opera, the action was tightened, the characters were "Italianized," and most of the political motivation was cut. The action of the play and the opera takes place in Rome between noon of June 17, 1800 and dawn the following day, during which time all of the major characters die violent deaths.

Synopsis of the action: As Act I begins in the church of Sant'Andrea della Valle, an escaped political prisoner, Cesare Angelotti, takes refuge in a secret hiding place in the family chapel of his sister, the Marchesa Attavanti. When the painter Mario Cavaradossi arrives to work on his mural, Angelotti recognizes him as a fellow revolutionary sympathizer and asks for his help. Cavaradossi enthusiastically agrees, but conceals his involvement from his lover, the jealous opera star Floria Tosca. As a result, the sinister Baron Scarpia, Chief of Roman Police, finds it easy to arouse Tosca's suspicions of an affair between Cavaradossi and the Marchesa. When Tosca goes to find her supposedly unfaithful lover, the police follow her to Cavaradossi's country villa. Cavaradossi tells her the truth, and hurries her away before the police arrive; they arrest the painter, but are unable to find Angelotti, who is hidden in the well in the garden. Act II is set in the apartments of the Baron Scarpia at the Farnese Palace.

Cavaradossi refuses to talk, and is tortured, while the frantic Tosca tries to save him. She breaks down and betrays Angelotti's hiding place. News arrives that Bonaparte and the revolutionary armies, thought defeated, have in fact won the battle at Marengo. Cavaradossi is overjoyed, but is dragged away for execution, leaving Tosca alone with the Baron. Scarpia offers to arrange a mock execution if Tosca will agree to satisfy his lust; she agrees, but instead stabs him to death. In Act III, Cavaradossi prepares for death at the Castel Sant'Angelo. Tosca arrives and tells him that they will soon be free, but the firing squad is all too real. Tosca has only a moment of grief before the police arrive: they have found Scarpia's corpse. Evading their grasp, Tosca flings herself from the parapet of the fortressto her death. 1. The first English-language production of the play La Tosca opened in New York in 1889 and starred American actor-manager Fanny Davenport in the title role.

Although Bernhardt performed the play (in French) successfully throughout America for decades, the English version created a storm of protest. Respectable women walked out on what were described as "scenes that could not be elaborated without constant fear of police intervention." Tosca's suicide was the last straw for New Yorkers, and after the first performances the end of the play was changed: instead of leaping to her death, she was shot by the soldiers! In fact, Puccini's librettists also disliked the suicide, and an alternate ending for the opera was (briefly) considered: rather than leap, Tosca would go mad, collapse, and die on the body of her lover (presumably of Sudden Operatic Death Syndrome). 2. Although Floria Tosca is supposed to be a beloved Roman opera star, in reality it had been illegal for women to appear on the operatic stage in the papal capital from the seventeenth century until 1798about three years before Tosca is set. Roles written for women singers, and performed by them in other parts of Italy, were taken in Rome by castratos (male sopranos and altos surgically altered before adolescence so that their voices did not break).

Star castratos like Marchesi and Velluti were wildly popular with the Roman opera-going public. Moralistic revolutionaries banned the castratos when the Roman Republic took over in 1798. After the fall of the Republic in 1799, the castratos returned, but the women stayed, thus allowing singers like Floria Tosca to make their Rome debuts. 3. Although Tosca is the most famous of all "Roman" operas, none of the three major characters is Roman. For his play La Tosca, Sardou, who was careful about historical details (though often wildly inaccurate about other things), made his heroine a Venetian subject, an orphan from the city of Verona. He had a dreadful time finding a last name for her, and the one he settled on, "Tosca," is in fact a given namethere is a church of Saint Tosca in Verona.

Another factor in the French playwright's choice of a name might have been the title of an opera that was popular during the French Revolution: La LodoÅska, set to music by Cherubini and others, and performed in Rome under the Roman Republic of 1798-99. The eponymous heroine's name, Lodoïska, when pronounced in French, sounds very much like "La Tosca." 4. Sardou's hero, Mario Cavaradossi, is not even Italian by birth: he is supposed to have been born in Paris, and is visiting Rome for the first time in 1800. His father was a Roman of noble birth who left Italy as a young man and married a granddaughter of the Swiss-French philosophe, Helvetius.

Sardou, who took a great deal of trouble over the names of his characters, seems to have decided on this five-syllable name partly because it sounds rather like that of the famous painter Caravaggio; partly because it recalls Caracciolo, a Neapolitan admiral executed in 1798 for his pro-French activities; and perhaps because it is very like a noble Genoese name, Caravadossi, one of whose members was active in the Italian wars of independence in the mid-nineteenth century. 5. A 1999 production of Puccini's Tosca at the Opéra Bastille in Paris changed the character of Scarpiain Sardou's play a Sicilian police officialinto a Cardinal. The dramatic staging showed him putting on his vestments for the Te Deum while singing his first-act aria. It is a shocking idea, and historically absurdRome was not ruled by the Church in June of 1800but the characterization is in fact consonant with the bitter anti-clericalism that was typical of much of the popular theater at the time when Sardou, and later Puccini, were writing.

6. There actually is a "hiding place" in one of the chapels at Sant'Andrea della Valle. The first chapel on the left from the main entrance, the Barberini chapel, conceals in the street wall a shallow little chamber separated from the chapel proper by an ironwork grill. This is a shrine to Saint Sebastian, marking the spot where a pious Christian woman named Lucina found the entrance to the city's sewers that led her to the body of the martyr Sebastian, later buried outside the city walls in the catacomb that bears his name. It is no doubt a coincidence that the only image of the Magdalene in the church is in this Barberini chapel. It is a statue rather than a painting (like Cavaradossi's) but she is a typical Magdalene, beautiful, penitent, and half-naked with her breasts covered only by her hair and by a strategically placed cross. 7. During the time at which Tosca is set, the real city of Rome was occupied by an Allied force of Neapolitans, Austrians, Russians, Turks, and English, all at war with Republican France.

Although stage directors today often insert cowled clerics into scenes in the opera that feature police oppression, at the time when the opera is set, there was actually no ecclesiastical government in Rome. The elderly Pope (Pius VI) had been exiled from Rome in February 1798, dragged across Europe for a year and a half, and died in Valance, France on 29 August 1799. Although a treaty had been arranged whereby the newly elected Pope, Pius VII, would arrive to take over his city in early July 1800, in June the Neapolitans were still trying their best to keep control of Rome. 8. The character of Cesare Angelotti was based in part upon a sleazy Roman politician named Liborio Angelucci who, like Angelotti, was a "Consul of the late Roman Republic." Angelucci, a physician and sometime obstetrician, was typical of the Republicans in late eighteenth-century Rome, most of whom were middle-class professionals, or the sons of nobles, or intellectual and idealistic churchmen.

He had an excellent reputation as a medical man and as a scholar (he was editor of the first Roman edition of Dante's Divine Comedy), but he was in political hot water almost constantly after 1792. In 1794 he was arrested for taking part in a conspiracy against the papal government and was held for a while in the Castel Sant'Angelo; in 1797 he was in trouble again, this time accused of plotting to murder the Pope. When the French took Rome, Angelucci became one of the consuls (executives) of the Roman Republic. Unfortunately, he seems to have been primarily interested in enriching himself and his family. He was attacked in the Republican press as a thief and a false patriot and forced to resign. He fled Rome with the French armies in 1799 and did not return to Rome until 1809despite his offer to act as a spy for the new pope after 1800! 9. Puccini's sense of humor was often of the schoolboy variety, and he found risqué musical puns irresistible.

In Act II of the opera, after Spoletta has assured Scarpia that "everything is ready" for the execution of Cavaradossi, the Chief of Police turns to Tosca and softly asks, "Ebbene?""Well?" She says nothing, and the score tells us that she indicates her submission by nodding her head. But at her silent reply the orchestra, anticipating the two-note theme of the "execution" motif, plays the two-note phrase, A and C, or in Italian solfeggio, La and Do. The syllables, in addition to being musical symbols, also happen to be words in Italian: the words "La do" mean "I'm giving it," and it is the usual way for women to say, I'm ready to give "it" (to you). 10. The news of Bonaparte's surprise victory over the Allies really did reach Rome in much the way that we see it in the opera.

By mid-day on Tuesday, June 17, the Roman diarist Galimberti noted with satisfaction that "the French are beaten by General Melas, who has re-taken Milan." Galimberti reports that the Jacobins (that is, Roman Republicans like Cavaradossi) "laughed and behaved insolently on hearing this news." However, late that night he added a coda to his diary entry: "The official notices about Austrian victories over the French in Italy. . .have been amended." A second courier had arrived in the city late on the night of June 17-18 with news of Bonaparte's surprising victory. Men like Cavaradossi went wild: "[They] gathered in the fields around the Castel Sant'Angiolo [sic], dancing the Carmagnole [a revolutionary ditty], playing and singing. They got nearer and nearer the fortress; a sentry on the walls challenged them but they just kept singing, so he fired on them and they moved away." Copyright notice: © 2000 by Susan Vandiver Nicassio. This text appears on the University of Chicago Press website by permission of the author.

This text may be used and shared in accordance with the fair-use provisions of U.S. and international copyright law and agreements, and it may be archived and redistributed in electronic form, provided that this entire notice, including copyright information, is carried and provided that Susan Vandiver Nicassio and the University of Chicago Press are notified and no fee is charged for access. Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on other terms, in any medium, requires the consent of Susan Vandiver Nicassio. Susan Vandiver Nicassio LA Opera - Tosca TOSCA Posted on May 12, 2013 by: Margie Schnibbe 26 Comments: The Tosca scenery arrived from Houston in three 53-foot trucks in thousands of small pieces. It normally takes our stage crew two or three days to assemble all of the pieces into a full stage setting. With rental or incoming productions, minor repairs often have to be made due to the stress of shipping and handling. By the end of the third day, we have begun to make these minor repairs and scenic touch-ups. Replica hand-carved foam sculptures were designed for this production.

The sculptures are hard-coated with urethane foam and treated with scenic paint to look like stone. Each act has a different silk curtain. These silk drops are weighted at the bottom with a drapery chain to keep them from fluttering around when the curtain flies in and out. Note that a small bit of drapery chain hangs below the curtain. This chain will be sewn back into the bottom of the drop. One of the final elements of the scenery to be assembled is the ceiling. The aluminum triangular trusses serve as a lightweight skeletal structure. The ceiling is attached and held in place by four batten pipes over the stage. A scenic artist touches up the walls with gray paint custom-mixed to match the existing color. Note that the ceiling is now in place in the set. Tags: LA Opera On Air Begins Saturday, May 18 Posted on May 18, 2013 7 Comments: For the eighth consecutive year Classical KUSC brings you LA Opera On Air , Saturdays at 10am. Each week you’ll hear a complete performance from LA Opera’s 2012/13 Season , recorded live at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

The series is hosted by KUSC’s Duff Murphy and continues to be made possible by a generous grant from the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, spearheaded by the efforts of Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky. May 18 Giuseppe Verdi: The Two Foscari Plácido Domingo and James Conlon join forces in a new production of this Verdi masterpiece. The languid canals and boisterous festivals of 15th-century Venice conceal a deadly web of secret plots and vindictive rivalries. Caught up in forces beyond their control, a father and son struggle to reclaim honor in a city that knows no mercy. Plácido Domingo stars as a head of state, desperate to protect his son -- and himself -- from the ruthless enemies that surround them. May 25 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Don Giovanni The legendary seducer Don Juan returns in a production new to LA! Considered by many to be the greatest opera ever written, Don Giovanni deftly balances comedy and tragedy with unforgettable music.

Features a vividly theatrical staging by the legendary director Peter Stein, the smolderingly intense Ildebrando D'Arcangelo as Don Giovanni, and LA Opera's rich tradition of Mozart's classics. June 1 Giacomo Puccini: Madame Butterfly A love that knows no boundaries goes horribly wrong in a fateful meeting of East and West. What begins as an idyllic liaison in an enchanting land of cherry blossoms turns into the heartbreaking tragedy of an abandoned bride forced to make an excruciating decision. A stunning production, never before seen in Los Angeles, melds sumptuous costumes with evocative period scenery. From the acclaimed director of Il Postino, Ron Daniels. June 8 Richard Wagner: Flying Dutchman The legend of the ghostly ship condemned to wander the oceans forever has fascinated opera lovers - and more recently, movie lovers - for hundreds of years. An enthralling score, illuminated by striking stage imagery, powers a thrilling journey into an unsettling, mythic world where a tormented spirit seeks true love as his redemption.

James Conlon, one of the foremost Wagner interpreters of our time, leads a world-class cast in a mesmerizing production, new to Los Angeles, staged by the brilliant Nikolaus Lehnhoff. June 15 Giochino Rossini: La Cenerentola (Cinderella) In her impoverished stepfather's castle, a kindhearted girl dreams of escaping the tyranny of her vain stepsisters. When the prince announces that he will choose his bride at a glamorous ball, she seizes the opportunity to take control of her own destiny. Rossini's warmhearted retelling of the Cinderella story is a delightfully romantic comedy, brought to life by the dazzling vocal fireworks of an exciting young cast and a production new to Los Angeles! Conducted by James Conlon. June 22 Giacomo Puccini: Tosca A fiery prima donna is forced to play a role she never imagined when she becomes trapped between her allegiance to her rebel lover and the scheming of a treacherous police chief who will stop at nothing in his lust for her. The explosive triangle comes to a hair-raising conclusion in one of opera's bloodiest, most intense dramas.

One of the most popular of all operas, Tosca is a passionate tale set to some of Puccini's most openly beautiful and passionate music. For more information visit Tags: (Originally published in Opera Today ) When is verismo verily veristic? Or what is a virginal girl dressed in communion white doing in the two murderous acts of the Los Angeles Opera’s current production of Tosca? And why does she sing the shepherd's song? Before we explore the girl’s presence, we must meet Floria Tosca, the eponymous heroine of the opera, originally the creation of French playwright Victorien Sardou. Sardou’s five act play, La Tosca, which takes place in Rome on a June day in 1800, was an immensely popular work with which Sarah Bernhardt toured the world. Puccini and librettist Luigi Illica reduced the work to an intense and brutal drama featuring three principles: Tosca, a famous opera singer; the artist Maria Cavaradossi, her lover, who is sheltering an escaped revolutionary prisoner in his country home; and Baron Scarpia, chief of police, who lusts for Tosca. Lusts is the right word.

He announces that he plans to have her violently and briefly. After arresting Cavaradossi, Scarpia invites Tosca to his office, from which she can hear Cavaradossi’s screams of pain as he is being tortured. Scarpia sentences Cavaradossi to death, then appears to agree to a mock execution and a safe conduct out of Rome for the lovers if Tosca will surrender to him. When Scarpia has signed the order and turns towards her, Tosca stabs him to death. Immediately thereafter, she rushes to prison to tell Mario there will be a fake execution, but when he is really shot, and her own crime is discovered, Tosca leaps from the prison tower. Sondra Radvanovsky’s appearance as the Roman diva made this a special occasion for the Los Angeles Opera company and its audience. Since the soprano’s first appearance with the company in 2004 in Verdi’s Il Trovatore, she has made an international career in Verdi roles. Ms. Radvanovsky’s radiant voice is evenly produced throughout all registers. Her moving “vissi d’arte” which concluded with a messa di voce brought vociferous applause.

Her stabbing of Scarpia with two knife thrusts was one of the most vehement I have seen. As Tosca’s lover, Mario Cavaradossi, Italian tenor, Marco Berti did not match Radvanovsky’s lyricism, particularly early on. Singing the first act’s “recondite armonia” to Placido Domingo, the evening’s conductor, can’t be easy work. However, Berti’s high notes, including the famous “Vittoria” were clarion sounds. And happily, he seemed more comfortable with his last act aria. Lado Ataneli made a suave yet savage Scarpia. Keeping with his character, Puccini has given Scarpia sinuously lyrical passages, which the Georgean baritone delivered with subtlety and power. It’s a shame that opera audiences of late have demonstrated a childish tendency to hiss or boo villainous characters at their curtain calls. Ataneli was deprived of the appreciation he deserved. Philip Cokorinos, Joshua Bloom as the Sacristan and Angelotti, the escaped prisoner, respectively, turned in convincing performances, as did Eden McCoy as the young girl. Maestro Domingo led a well-paced performance.

At times he seemed to be bent over as though to extract still more emotion from his orchestra. However he effected it, Puccini’s orchestration sounded lush. John Caird, who has earned honors and worked on every kind of stage throughout the world, led the production team for Tosca, which he originally created for Houston Grand Opera in 2010. Caird considers Tosca “one of the greatest works of music theater ever written” and has lauded its “overwhelming musical, human, moral and religious powers.” At the same time he has enhanced verismo violence by staging a bloodier than usual Tosca. Each act opens with an ever more blood- blotched fore curtain, which is pulled down by the first character to appear in the ensuing act. And he has Tosca slit her own throat. Neither sets nor costumes give an indication of the time of the opera’s setting, though Ms. Radvanovsky was encumbered with a bustle. What is clear, is that the action seems to have followed a calamity. The unit sets are dark, unattractive and except for the last act, cramped.

Cavaradossi works on a three story scaffolding, each of which holds a different part of the Madonna’s face he is painting. Talk of verismo — if that painting were put together, there’d be no place to hang it in that church. The second act, usually staged in Scarpia’s elegant Farnese quarters, is here a warehouse filled with cartons, statues, all sorts of matter clearly purporting to be ill gotten gains. The prison is a large empty yard made still uglier for us as we watch Angelotti’s body being hung. At the rear is a large unbarred, open window — another “unverismo” touch. But now it is time to return to the virginal girl dressed in communion white. It is she who pulls down the curtain for the prison scene. She then crosses the stage, sits at the window’s edge where she sings the shepherd’s greeting to the sun in a childish voice, “For you I will die,” are its last words. She will remain there throughout the act. The girl first appeared in the second act, beckoning to Tosca after the singer killed Scarpia.

There is no mysterious or mystical character in either the Puccini or Sardou stories. The girl is Caird’s creation. But who is she, why does she sing the shepherd’s song? Though the director may seem to have forsaken purists’ interpretation of verismo by inserting this vision, he has, in fact, made more explicit what Puccini had only implied, and what Sardou had made clear: that Tosca was a child of the church. Puccini’s Tosca lays flowers at the Atavanti altar, and refuses to kiss Mario before the Madonna. In “vissi d’arte”, her plea to God, she recalls her devotion and generosity to the church. Her last word in the opera is “God.” In Sardou’s play we learn the full depth of Tosca’s faith. She herded goats as a child until she was found and raised by Benedictine nuns, who expected for her to join their order. As she began singing and her talent was recognized in the secular world, the composer Cimarosa insisted she become an opera singer. Sardou tells us that the entire city of Rome took sides in the ensuing conflict until the girl was brought to sing before the pope.

Charmed by her voice, the pontiff patted her cheek and told her, “Go your way, my child, you will move others to compassion, as you have me. You will make people shed gentle tears and that too is a way of praying to God.” Berlin - Tosca - visitBerlin.de EN Missed this event? Opera by Giacomo Puccini In Puccini's great tragedy of love, the heroine herself is a celebrated opera singer who will do anything to save her beloved painter Mario from death row. Love, jealousy, menaces and doom dominate this enthralling but tragic story.; FIRST ACT Rome, June 17, 1800, The Church Sant’Andrea della Valle Angelotti, a Consul of the former Republic of Rome, has fled the prison inside the castle Sant’Angelo, where he had been held captive since the royal Neapolitan troops destroyed the Roman republic. He takes refuge for the moment in the chapel of his sister, the Marchesa Attavanti. In the church, Mario Cavaradossi is painting a picture of Maria Magdalena.

The suspicious sacristan observes the painter, and secretly reviles him as a heretic and dog of a Voltairean. When Cavaradossi is alone, Angelotti comes out of the chapel. The painter, familiar with the former Consul’s fate, immediately declares his willingness to help the escapee. But Angelotti has to hide again when Floria Tosca, the famous singer and the painter’s beloved, wants to enter the church. Her jealousy is aroused when she notes the similarity between Cavaradossi’s painting of Maria Magdalena and Attavanti, whom the painter has portrayed while at prayer in the church. After Tosca leaves, cannon shots signal that Angelotti’s escape has been discovered. Cavaradossi and the fugitive Angelotti leave the church together, with the plan of hiding the Consul at the painter’s country home. When the news reaches Rome that General Melas and his Austrian troops have defeated Napoleon Bonaparte and the French army at Marengo, a »Te deum« is prepared to celebrate the event. Scarpia, the feared police chief, suddenly appears at the revels of the chapel choir.

Circumstantial evidence leads him to the conclusion that Angelotti was in the church and that the painter Cavaradossi – whom the secret police have long suspected is a freethinker – has assisted the Consul’s escape. With the aid of Attavanti’s fan, found by one of his henchman, Scarpia reawakens the jealousy of Tosca, who has returned to the church. A livid Tosca hurries to Cavaradossi’s country house, until now unknown to the police. Scarpia orders his agents to follow her. SECOND ACT The Police Chief‘s Room in the Palazzo Farnese Scarpia waits for his underlings to return with captives: the fugitive Angelotti and Cavaradossi. He wants to blackmail Tosca into alquiescing to his sexual desires. Spoletta appears to report that he could not find Angelotti, but has arrested Cavaradossi. When the painter is brought forward, Tosca’s voice is heard from the nearby Hall of the Queen, singing a cantata on the occasion of the Austrian victory. Cavaradossi denies any hand in Angelotti’s escape.

He is taken away for interrogation, where torture is planned to force him to confess. While Mario’s screams of pain are heard, Scarpia subjects Tosca to a terrible psychological terror. To rescue her beloved, she reveals Angelotti’s hiding place. Cavaradossi, released from the torture, hears the fresh news that Bonaparte, not Melas, has won at Marengo; he is unable to conceal his jubilation. Scarpia orders his execution. Only if Tosca gives herself to Scarpia will he spare Cavaradossi’s life. Faced with her lover’s imminent death on the gallows, Tosca indicates her willingness to submit. Scarpia assures her that Cavaradossi will not be hanged, but shot the next morning – but only as a ruse! He gives her a pass and claims it will allow her and Cavaradossi to flee. But when he approaches Tosca, she stabs him to death. THIRD ACT Inside Castle Sant’Angelo. Early morning Before his execution, Cavaradossi is put in the custody of a guard. His thoughts return to happy hours with Tosca, who then appears and reports what has happened.

Cavaradossi is unable to share her joy in the coming liberation, since he understands Scarpia’s methods better than she does. He has a feeling the promised fake execution is only a trick. But Tosca regards the execution as a kind of theater performance, and gives her beloved tips on how to fall convincingly. The firing squad lines up and carries out the execution. Only now, confronted with Cavaradossi’s death, does Tosca realize that Scarpia has deceived her. Meanwhile, the corpse of the police chief has been discovered. Tosca eludes her pursuers’ grasp by leaping from the battlements of the castle Sant’Angelo.; Melodramma in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to a libretto by Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica after Victorien Sardou´s play »La Tosca«. Tosca at Boston Lyric Opera - Berkshire Fine Arts Tosca at Boston Lyric Opera Art and Politics By: David Bonetti - Nov 07, 2010 In the studio of the artist/ revolutionary Mario Cavaradossi.. An enraged Tosca.

A plot to save Mario from execution on the ramparts of Castel Santâ€™Angelo. Jill Gardner as Floria Tosca and Diego Torre as Mario Cavaradossi in Boston Lyric Opera’s production of "Tosca." (Photo credit: Jeffrey Dunn) Additional performances: November 10, 12,14 (matinee), 16 617-542-6772 for tickets Bostonians of a political mind – and who in Boston is not? – had the opportunity this fall to see two of the most forthrightly political operas in the repertoire, “Fidelio” and “Tosca,” in quick succession. Beethoven wrote “Fidelio” in the first years of the 19th century, within living memory of the revolutions that overthrew the old regimes and spurred the reactionary movements that always spring up in the aftermath of progressive change. In “Tosca,” which premiered in 1900, Puccini looked back at that heroic historical period from a century’s perspective. In both operas, a tyrant is overthrown, although the romantic couples struggling against oppression at the center of each drama meet different fates.

Beethoven presents a happy ending, his two lovers reunited; Puccini kills off his lovebirds, showing pessimistically that evil outlives even the tyrant’s death. Opera Boston, unfortunately, in an overall fuzzy concept, downplayed the political aspects of “Fidelio.” Boston Lyric Opera, by contrast, emphasized the politics – and the contemporary relevance – of “Tosca” by moving its setting from the Napoleonic era to that of Mussolini’s Italy. (Quick plot summary: Floria Tosca is a famous and glamorous opera star. Her lover is the painter Mario Cavaradossi, who has revolutionary sympathies. Angelotti, a political prisoner, has just escaped from prison and made his way to the church where Mario is painting a picture. Mario aids in his escape, which gives the Baron Scarpia, Rome’s evil police chief, a reason to chase them both down and in the process seduce Tosca, a double dose of victory. In short order, he captures Cavaradossi, tortures him and gets Tosca to divulge Angelotti’s hiding place.

Tosca agrees to Scarpia’s terms, but before he can fulfill them and after he has written her a safe-pass out of Rome, she stabs him to death. Thinking that the execution is a pretense, Tosca is distraught when Mario is actually killed and as the police rush to her after learning of Scarpia’s murder, she throws herself off the prison’s parapet. Each of the opera’s acts, which occur within a 24-hour span, is set in a different Roman landmark, making the opera a love-letter of sorts to the eternal city. Act I is in the church of Sant’Andrea della Valle; Act II in the Palazzo Farnese, where Scarpia has his offices; and Act III on the ramparts of the Castel Sant’Angelo.) Resetting operas in times and places different from their texts is no longer as controversial as it was 30 years ago when it was the calling card of the opera avant-garde.

(Remember Peter Sellars’ resetting of “Le Nozze di Figaro” from a Spanish country house to a penthouse in the Trump Tower?) Since then the number of such updated productions have probably amounted to a draw, the successes equaling the failures. Boston Lyric’s updating, an “adaptation” of a Scottish Opera production, does no harm, the least you can expect from any such change. All the actions are left in their original settings and could plausibly take place in them, even with more modern décor and dress. And in a number of scenes, the explicitly fascist imagery of 1930s Italy leaves a chill that no production set in the Napoleonic era can today, no matter how evil Scarpia is portrayed. It’s the difference between the knee-high leather boot, the leather hat, the long black leather trench coat and the garb of an old regime tyrant. We know what the former costume denotes, we not so sure about the latter. The change in Tosca’s costume’s from a famous opera star’s mid-century Italian chic to a getaway outfit complete with beret that a heroine in an Italian neo-realist movie set in the chaos of post-war Rome might wear is also telling.

In general, the production concept (by Anthony Besch), the sets and costumes (by Peter Rice) and the local stage direction (by David Lefkowich) and lighting design (Paul Heckenmueller) deserve high marks. Although there are a few caveats, the primary one being a red-gowned Tosca unnecessarily appearing at the end of Act I to hover over Scarpia. “Tosca” has been famously called a shabby little thriller. And it’s true that it’s not as high-minded as many of its predecessors, among them Beethoven’s “Fidelio.” But – tell the truth – which opera would you rather see? For its virtues – rich orchestration, ravishing arias and ensembles – “Fidelio” is dead in the water theatrically. There’s a reason Beethoven never wrote another opera. He realized it was not his strength. Puccini, on the other hand, was a man of the theater and he wrote virtually nothing but opera. A shabby little thriller, yes, but a thriller, first and foremost, and you sit on the edge of your seat (metaphorically, of course) even if you’ve seen it a dozen times.

Like all good thrillers, there’s not an extraneous line – just the inexorable drive to the plot’s resolution. The test of a good “Tosca” is whether it thrills or not, and this one does. (Of course even a lousy production of the opera can’t help but thrill. Puccini has written a fail-safe work: The thrills are built-in.) In addition to the production strengths, the principal cast members fully inhabit their characters. The playful scene between Tosca (Jill Gardner) and Mario (Diego Torres) in Act I suggests a previous physical familiarity, and her jealousy is more than credibly projected, even as you know that she will forgive Mario almost anything. And Scarpia (a Scott Brown good-looking Bradley Garvin) is menacing from his first entrance, his storm-trooper outfit the ornament of his sexy persona. (Read Susan Sontag’s “Fascinating Fascism” if you don’t understand the allure.) The scene between Tosca and Scarpia as he maps out her seduction while her lover is being tortured off-stage is physically exacting and emotionally gripping: the prelude to a negotiated rape, but, boy, does she have a surprise for him.

Her stabbing is brutal and drawn out. First she drops the hidden knife, then, recovering, grabs a pair of scissors off his desk and stabs him again and again and again, crying “muori” – die! Unfortunately, the singing did not come close to equaling the acting. All principals are solid, but none offer the thrills of great Italian singing. Torre lacks the Italian “ping” that made singers like Luciano Pavarotti (and today’s Juan Diego Florez) rich and famous. His cry of “Vittoria” when the news of a Napoleonic victory interrupts his torture did not ring. The memory of Franco Corelli on tour here a quarter of a century ago with the Met at Hynes Auditorium still resounds in my ears. (Not to mention Pavorotti singing under the same auspices with Magda Olivero, but you can’t compare anything to that night – it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.) And his delivery of “E lucevan le stelle,” (“And the stars shone”) in which he reflects, before his execution, on his love of his soon-to-be-extinguished life, lacked the melting lyricism that makes it a highlight of the tenor repertoire.

Gardner was even less convincing vocally. Although her bottom and middle notes were secure, her upper voice was tight. Her “Vissi d’arte, vissi d’amore (“I lived for art, I lived for love”) – the great aria in the opera, one of the greatest arias in all opera – went over like the proverbial lead balloon. Instead of a natural outpouring of a woman facing a rape by a hated oppressor, it was all too effortful. Her singing caused a sympathetic but uncomfortable straining in the listener that accompanies a singer stretching for high notes. Garvin came off best vocally. His entrance in Act I was chilling visually and dramatically and his aria that closes the act, yellow light playing over his features as he pours out the sacrilegious statement, “Tosca, you make me forget God,” was also vocally chilling. In Act II, his quick switch from fascist torturer to suave seducer worked as well vocally as it did dramatically. And his Iago-like aria explaining his brutal philosophy – “There is more to savor to a conquest by violence than to the most-honeyed consent” – was put across effectively.

The minor roles were sung similarly: correctly but without distinction. (The Sacristan, T. Stephen Smith, was better than that, playing down the slapstick, but still comic.) Andrew Bisantz conducted with authority from the first fortissimos intoning the theme representing Scarpia, suggesting that the police chief might be the key character of the work, to the Act III lyricism of Cavardossi’s reflections on his coming death. I had heard complaints about the Shubert Theatre, but the acoustics seemed fine to me from my orchestra seat. There was no gap between orchestra and sounds produced on the stage. The sound texture was whole. Tosca - finalmente mia! - Photographs, Photographers and Photography Photographs, Photographers and Photography Movies , Photographers Thomas Pindelski On DVD at last. One of the enduring mysteries of the operatic world is that Andrea Andermann’s mythical production of Puccini’s Tosca was never transcribed to DVD. I had managed to copy my much worn VHS tape to a hard disk a few years ago but it was never a very satisfactory solution. The intrusive sub-titles could not be removed, the quality was not the greatest but there was no alternative.

If you have a child you wish to introduce to the seemingly forbidding world of Italian grand opera, there is no better place to start than with Puccini’s Tosca. It’s short, colorful, intensely dramatic, has clearly defined heroes and villains, involves torture, murder and execution – in fact just what the doctor ordered for any little boy! And the girls will revel in the beauty and vulnerability of the heroine and her surroundings. Now, finally, the Tosca is available on DVD from Kultur.com and in Blu-Ray at that. My copy came from Amazon in standard definition, where it was packaged along with Manon Lescaut and La Fanciulla del West in a Placido Domingo album . The image quality on the DVD copy is decent, not breathtaking, you see the occasional jaggies in fast motion shots, but anything beats that old VHS transcription, and the sound is splendid. The aspect ratio is sadly 4:3, as were TVs of the time. Surely an unadulterated widescreen original exists somewhere in the vaults? By the way, there is no indication that the Blu-Ray version has been remastered, so I would not spend the extra over the standard definition DVD.

Optional subtitles are in English, French, Italian and German, though why anyone would want to despoil the beauty of Italian by translation to brute German is quite beyond me. The language of command does not well suit that of love. Giacomo Puccini. For readers new to the opera, the plot could not be simpler. Set in 1800, Mario Cavaradossi is a revolutionary painter with Napoleonic republican ideals, in love with the actress Floria Tosca. Tosca is as beautiful as she is jealous of his association with the Marchesa Attavanti, whose portrait Cavaradossi is rendering in a wall fresco of the Catherdal of Sant’Andrea della Valle in Rome. The police chief Baron Scarpia wants to capture another revolutionary recently escaped from gaol, Cesare Angelotti, Attavanti’s brother, and believes he can get to him through Cavaradossi, a known associate. Scarpia tortures Cavardossi to get at Angelotti’s whereabouts but promises Tosca he will desist if she sleeps with him.

She agrees but not until she has secured a release for Cavaradossi, which Scarpia pens right before she stabs him to death. Believing that Scarpia has ordered the use of dummy rounds at Cavaradossi’s execution by firing squad, she turns up for the ceremony and tells Cavaradossi, her lover, that all is well. But Scarpia has double crossed Tosca and real ammunition is used. Mario dies, and Tosca commits suicide. The original libretto. The first performance was in 1900. At first you might think the artifice of staging in this production – the opera is performed in the original locations at the original times – is but a gimmick. Nothing could be further from the truth. Not only are the settings – the cathedral of Sant’Andrea della Valle, the police chief’s Palazzo Farnese headquarters and the prison of Castel Sant’Angelo – breathtaking, the great Vittorio Storaro does for the cinematography here what he did for Coppola in Apocalypse Now. Words cannot do either production justice. Vittorio Storaro. The complexity of filming the opera live and hiding all the gear is no less remarkable.

Everything is done right here. Nothing seems forced or rushed and the technology is mercifully nowhere to be seen outside the brief opening clips to each of the three acts. So now you have the greatest cinematographer of our time, a more than competent conductor in Zubin Mehta, and the original settings made available to you, what do you do? Why, get the three greatest opera singers of the time and give them their heads. But describing Catherine Malfitano, Placido Domingo and Ruggero Raimondi as opera singers does not begin to do them justice. Placido Domingo. Clint Eastwood should be relieved that the Oscars are limited to movies. His ‘Unforgiven’ pretty much swept the board in 1992, when this version of Tosca was first released. His Best Director award would have gone to Gianfranco de Bosio, Best Actor to Raimondi (his voice unforgettably choked with lust at the moment he thinks he can finally possess Tosca, his body language saying everything about power and its abuse) and Best Picture to Tosca.

And much as I admire Emma Thompson and her well deserved Best Actress award that year, no one, but no one, could hold a candle to Catherine Malfitano’s Tosca. Catherine Malfitano. A woman possessed. The finest acting performances are without exception those where the actor subsumes the rôle, living it as one. Until 1992 that honor belonged to Dirk Bogarde in Luchino Visconti’s Death in Venice (still not out in Blu-Ray – what is it with these people?). His subsequent nervous breakdown and absence from the studios for an extended period testify to the fact that no acting was involved. Bogarde was Gustav von Aschenbach. And in no lesser a way, Malfitano is Floria Tosca. It’s not enough to have a superb soprano voice, be one of the great beauties of our time, and have the ability to render seemingly dozens of facial expressions in seconds. You must also be able to act and her performance would head an Oscar sweep if one was but possible. It is as exhausting to watch for her passion and intensity as it must have been to perform.

By the time of the final act, at 6am in Rome, as Cavaradossi (Domingo) goes to the firing squad atop Castel Sant’Angelo, Malfitano is a complete wreck. It is written all over her face and body. She has lived a decade in the past 24 hours and now stands at the moment of triumph, only to have all her hopes and dreams shattered in the closing moments of the opera. You will gasp, shout, cry, exult, rejoice, despair and generally end up in her state by the time the opera ends when she leaps to her death from Castel Sant’Angelo to the Roman street below. Exhausting, and there is not anything remotely like it in the movies. Ruggero Raimondi. What about those locations? I have a special affinity for them as my mum, The Countess, spent a couple of joyous years – 1937-8 – living a stone’s throw away. (She would spend the following five under Nazi occupation in her native Poland, while discovering that titles are generally not worth the parchment they are written on).

Educated in the romance languages and the arts, it was a short walk from her Roman pensione to the 16th century Sant’Andrea della Valle, built at the very height of the Renaissance. It was her local Church. Receiving Communion there one Sunday, her purse was stolen by a fellow communicant at the altar rail. She used to love telling that story as much as I enjoyed hearing it, all forgiven in our shared love of things Italian. Palazzo Farnese, the French Embassy to this day, is another Renaissance masterpiece, its architects including that painter of ceilings who went on to work down the road in the Sistine Chapel. And Castel Sant’Angelo, the cylindrical prison with impenetrable walls and a shooting gallery on the roof dates back almost two thousand years to Hadrian, offering refuge to more than one Pope over the centuries. Quite where the angels come into the naming of a prison is hard to fathom, and pretty it is not, but like all these things it’s intended as a monument to the power of the state.

The way The Countess would reminisce of those days included many tales of the lecherous Italians and their bottom pinching ways, despite the presence of her chaperone at all times. She was 23 at the time and history confirms she had more money than fiscal sense. The Germans saw to the former and, much later, I provided the latter. She did me the great good favor of introducing me to opera, if little else. Throughout Tosca Puccini’s music soars, exults, revolts, sings, weeps and generally tells you why this is the most enduring opera ever. There are no longueurs, no moments where you wish you were elsewhere, no nodding off, no waiting for the intermission. Why, there is not even an overture. The whole thing is under two hours in length, suited to modern movie attention spans. Here are some favorite images from the production: Tosca enters Sant’Andrea della Valle. In passionate love, Tosca and Cavaradossi share a duet. Quite how one survives 100 decibels of Placido Domingo eight inches distant from your ears is a mystery to me.

The beautiful actress gives the performance of a lifetime. Here she is, wonderfully lit and photographed, beneath the platform on which Cavaradossi is painting the fresco. Tosca chides Cavaradossi who is painting the Attavanti chapel portrait of the eponymous blonde. “But make her eyes dark, Mario”. Italy has long excelled at combining sacred and secular art. Scarpia’s first appearance. Raimondi has overwhelming stage presence – check the obsequious Spoletta, his sidekick, on his right shoulder. The composition would make Raphael proud. The cruel police chief, Scarpia, offers freedom for Cavaradossi in exchange for sexual favors. Just look at the cinematography and Raimondi’s body language. Police brutality has been all downhill since. Palazzo Farnese: Vittorio Storaro renders Malfitano in the light of Caravaggio, as Tosca agonizes over Mario’s fate. “Vissi D’Arte, vissi d’Amore”. I have lived for art, I have lived for love. Malfitano soliloquizes over her fate as Scarpia tortures Cavaradossi.

“E lucevan e stelle”. And the stars were shining. Atop Castel Sant’Angelo, Cavaradossi prepares for the firing squad, St. Peter’s in the background. But 1,000 yards from St. Peter’s. Cavaradossi wonders how Tosca’s delicate hands could be the same which wielded the weapon used to kill Scarpia just hours ago. Malfitano is simply in a state of emotional ecstasy here. You will not see the likes of this anywhere. It matters not whether you like opera or Italian singing. Tosca is an orgy for the emotions and the eyes and should be in your collection. A note on alternatives: There is one other video performance worthy of attention. Forget the one with Anna Gheorgiu, Roberto Alagna and Ruggero Raimondi (again). The production is such a mess, with pretentious cutting between set and studio, it’s impossible to watch, despite Gheorghiu’s decent, if overrated voice.

The one to seek out has the spinto soprano Raina Kabaivanska, a porcelain beauty, joined by a fascinating Scarpia in the shape of Sherrill Milnes and Placido Domingo again reprising his rôle as Cavaradossi. On purely technical grounds, Kaibaivanska has it over the dramatic soprano of Malfitano, spinto meaning a high set voice with an extended range of great beauty. I never cease to wonder how so delicate a body can produce such a big sound. But what Kabaivanska – whom I adore – lacks, is Latin passion, something Malfitano has in abundance. The American baritone Sherrill Milnes has great presence as Scarpia, in no small part thanks to his sheer bigness, and a sonorous voice. He uses a great range of expressions from playful to evil but the problem is that he is just too young to have the gravitas of Raimondi in the Andermann production. Don’t let that put you off, as the performances here have a lot to offer.

Interestingly, the opera starts with an extensive long shot of Angelotti escaping from Castel Sant’Angelo to hide out in Sant’Andrea della Valle – Google Maps has it as a sixteen minute walk, so I imagine Angelotti got it down to under ten! Puccini’s Classic Heroine Comes to Vancouver Photo Credit: Tim Matheson Saturday marked Vancouver Opera’s opening of Puccini’s, Tosca . The venue for this piece is the coveted Queen Elizabeth Theatre, where everything from the orchestra to the costumes demands attention. This production, staged in Puccini’s native Italian, comes with a language barrier for us Anglophones. Thankfully, due to the inclusion of subtitles, Tosca proves to be easy to follow. I must admit that my experience with Opera, other than my attempts at belting out a few notes in the shower, has been limited. Fortunately, the story of Tosca enveloped me in a world where singing and story came together. The cast showed me what carrying a note really meant as I melted into my seat and indulged in its mysterious world of song. Puccini created Tosca after his success with other works such as the popular, La bohème.

The story of Tosca follows Floria Tosca (Michele Capalbo), a renowned singer, as she is simultaneously tricked and pursued by the malicious police chief, Baron Scarpia (Gordon Hawkins). Scarpia’s obsession with prying Tosca away from her lover, painter Mario Cavaradossi (David Pomeroy), leads to Scarpia’s successful imprisonment of Cavaradossi and consequently Tosca’s murder of Scarpia. Although I may have only mentioned three characters, Tosca does incorporate others. For me, one of the most memorable scenes is the last tableau of the first act. Here, a choir of children, nuns and priests take over the stage. In conjunction with the symphony these characters lend themselves to presenting the beauty of Opera in its union of voice and symphony. Tosca is thought to be one of Puccini’s greatest heroines, and it’s easy to see why. This jealous diva deals with love, betrayal, murder, and attempted rape, and somehow manages to face each threat with valor.

Even hopeful moments within the plot, such as the reunion of Tosca and Cavaradossi, manage to take a turn for the worst and leave her crying. Fortunately for the audience, Tosca’s courage does not stop her from exploring her grief through heart wrenching song. The Vancouver Opera’s rendition of Tosca is orthodox in terms of its costuming and sets and thus stays true to its 1800’s time frame. During the first intermission, a lady beside me who mentioned her forty-year involvement with Opera told me she enjoyed this production because of its historical realism. She had distain for anachronistic versions of Tosca she had previously seen—one of which she mentioned was set in a modern day Las Vegas. Each act bared a new set. Act one with its humble set up of Cavaradossi’s workplace and church, act two’s portrayal of Sarpia’s lavish living room, act three’s set as a holding place for Tosca’s soon to be executed lover. In each act Tosca comes through in her full gowns that brush the ground and sway with her every movement.

These beautiful gowns directed my attention to the obvious sex of Tosca, her femininity hindering her from the start she manages to break out of a passive female role and attempts to solve her problems in her own ways. Tosca’s story may end tragically, but the need for a prince to come save her is never an option. This heroine confides only in her voice to help her with her story. Opera is an acquired taste and with that said, I am glad I left the theatre with a positive outlook. Pulling off Puccini’s countless texts and melodies whilst acting in sync with the live symphony gave me a great amount of respect for every performer involved with Tosca.

Question: In which opera does the eponymous heroine love a painter 'Mario Cavaradossi'?
Answer: 'TOSCA'