Giacomo Puccini’s three-act opera, Tosca, blends “intrigue, love, lust, politics, and religion.” (James Conlon)
Set in Rome in June of 1800, amid the turbulence of the Napoleonic wars, the action takes place over a breakneck sixteen hours. The story centers around three principal characters: Floria Tosca (soprano), a star opera singer, her lover Mario Cavaradossi (tenor), a painter and republican, and the corrupt and sadistic chief of police, Baron Scarpia (baritone), a character Puccini scholar William Ashbrook describes as “a connoisseur of evil.”
Scarpia lusts after Tosca. He plays on her jealous insecurities. When he suspects that Cavaradossi is assisting an escaped political prisoner, Cesare Angelotti (bass), Scarpia seizes on the opportunity to manipulate Tosca into revealing the prisoner’s hiding place, and Cavaradossi’s involvement. Scarpia presents Tosca with a horrifying bargain. Only by giving herself to him will she save Cavaradossi from torture and execution. In desperation Tosca agrees, and Scarpia promises that Cavaradossi will be put in front of a mock firing squad. But when Scarpia approaches Tosca, she fatally stabs him. Later, Tosca realizes that Cavaradossi’s execution was real, and that he is dead. As the final curtain falls, she leaps to her death from the parapet of the Castel Sant’Angelo.
Puccini set out to create a drama that was “telegraphic, highly charged, and sensuous.” Far from the fragmented recitative-aria formula of bel canto opera, Tosca unfolds as a continuous, uninterrupted musical stream, with each of the acts functioning as a symphonic unit. Puccini employs the leitmotif technique used by Wagner, in which characters are represented by a brief motif. In the first moments of Act I, before the curtain rises, Scarpia’s leitmotif, built on a tritone, rises up as a titanic force. It haunts the score, melting away in the villain’s final moments, and recurs as a lingering ghost.
Perhaps the first great opera of the 20th century, Tosca premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on January 14, 1900.
Here are four key excerpts from Tosca:
Te Deum (Act I)
The Te Deum closes the first act. Consumed with thoughts of conquest, Scarpia’s blasphemous and vengeful inner monologue blends with the Roman Catholic liturgy, which translates as “Thee, God, we praise.” Church bells are set to the exact pitch of the great bell of St Peter’s Basilica, and cannon fire signals the escape of the prisoner, Angelotti. There is a sardonic reference to the falling fourth “love” leitmotif of Tosca and Cavaradossi (2:11). The first act ends as it began, with Scarpia’s leitmotif ringing out in triumph.
This 2011 performance, from Jonathan Kent’s production with the Royal Opera, features the Welsh baritone, Bryn Terfel:
Vissi d’arte (Act II)
Vissi d’arte (“I lived for art”) is Tosca’s grief-stricken prayer to a God who has seemingly abandoned her. As her fate, and the fate of Cavaradossi, lies in the hands of Scarpia, she tries to make sense of her situation:
I lived for art, I lived for love,
I never harmed a living soul!
With a discreet hand
I relieved all misfortunes I encountered.Always with sincere faith
my prayer
rose to the holy tabernacles.
Always with sincere faith
I decorated the altars with flowers.In this hour of grief,
why, why, Lord,
why do you reward me thus?I donated jewels to the Madonna’s mantle,
and offered songs to the stars and to heaven,
which thus did shine with more beauty.
In this hour of grief,
why, why, Lord,
ah, why do you reward me thus?
Andrew Lloyd Webber paid subtle motivic homage to Vissi d’arte in the song, All I Ask of You from the Broadway hit, The Phantom of the Opera.
Here is Maria Callas’ 1953 studio recording with Victor de Sabata and the Orchestra of La Scala in Milan:
Prelude to Act III- Io de’ sospiri
The first act of Tosca begins without an orchestral prelude. We are immediately thrown into the action. Only in the opening of the final act does Puccini pause for a moment of reflection with an opening prelude. Predawn church bells ring out, marking the liturgy of matins. A shepherd boy is heard in the distance, singing the folksong, Io de’ sospiri (“I give you sighs”). Scarpia’s theme emerges as a ghostly dance.
This recording features Herbert von Karajan and the Vienna Philharmonic with boy soprano, Herbert Weiss:
E lucevan le stelle (Act III)
Beginning with a lonely, melancholy statement by the solo clarinet, E lucevan le stelle (“And the stars were shining”) is Cavaradossi’s farewell to life, as he awaits execution.
When the stars were brightly shining …
And faint perfumes the air pervaded,
Creaked the gate of the garden …
And footstep its precincts invaded …
‘Twas hers, the fragrant creature.
In her soft arms she clasped me…With sweetest kisses, tenderest caresses,
A thing of beauty, of matchless symmetry in form and feature!
My dream of love is now dispelled forever.
I lived uncaring and now I die despairing!
Alas I die despairing!
And never was life so dear to me, no never,
So dear, no never!
This 1978 Metropolitan Opera performance, conducted by James Conlon, features Luciano Pavarotti:
Recordings
- Puccini: Vissi d’arte, Maria Callas, Victor de Sabata, Orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Amazon
- Puccini: Tosca, Herbert von Karajan, Vienna Philharmonic Amazon
- Puccini: Tosca, James Conlon, Luciano Pavarotti, Metropolitan Opera Amazon
Featured Image: a poster created for the world premiere of Puccini’s Tosca in 1900, Leopoldo Metlicovitz
Thank you Tim