Speranza
La Tosca is a five-act drama by the 19th-century French playwright Victorien
Sardou.
It was first performed on 24 November 1887 at the Théâtre de la Porte
Saint-Martin in Paris, with Sarah Bernhardt in the title role.
Despite negative
reviews from the Paris critics at the opening night, it became one of Sardou's
most successful plays and was toured by Bernhardt throughout the world in the
years following its premiere.
The play itself is no longer performed, but its
operatic adaptation, Giacomo Puccini's Tosca, has achieved enduring popularity.
There have been several other adaptations of the play including two for the
Japanese theatre and an English burlesque, Tra-La-La Tosca (all of which
premiered in the 1890s) as well as several film versions.
La Tosca is set in
Rome on 17 June 1800 following Buonaparte's victory in the Battle of Marengo.
The
action takes place over an eighteen-hour period, ending at dawn on 18 June 1800.
Its melodramatic plot centers on Floria Tosca, a celebrated opera singer; her
lover, Mario Cavaradossi (based on the Caravadossi), an artist and Bonapartist sympathiser; and Baron
Scarpia, Rome's ruthless Regent of Police.
By the end of the play, all three are
dead.
Scarpia arrests Cavaradossi and sentences him to death in the Castel
Sant'Angelo.
He then offers to spare her lover if Tosca will sleep with him.
She
appears to acquiesce, but as soon as Scarpia gives the order for the firing
squad to use blanks, she stabs him to death.
On discovering that Cavaradossi's
execution had in fact been a real one, Tosca commits suicide by throwing herself
from the castle's parapets.
Victorien Sardou's grandfather had served as a surgeon
with Napoleon's army in Italy, and Sardou retained a lifelong interest in the
French Revolution and the French Revolutionary Wars.
In addition to La Tosca,
six of his other plays were set against the events of those times:
-- Monsieur
Garat (1860)
-- Les Merveilleuses (1873)
-- Thermidor (1891)
-- Madame Sans-Gêne
(1893)
-- Robespierre (1899), and
-- Pamela (1898).
He was known for the historical
research which he used to inform his plays and had a private research library of
over 80,000 books including Piranesi's etchings of late 18th century Rome, where
La Tosca is set.
Sardou wrote La Tosca specifically for Sarah Bernhardt.
She was in her mid-40s by then and France's leading actress.
In 1883, she had
also taken over the lease on the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin, where La
Tosca was to premiere.
It was the third play which Sardou had written for her.
Both their first collaboration, Féodora (1882), and their second, Théodora
(1884), had been highly successful.[3]
Pierre Berton, who played Baron Scarpia,
had been Bernhardt's on and off lover for many years and a frequent stage
partner.[4]
The elaborate sets for the production were made by a team of
designers and painters who had worked with Sardou before: Auguste Rubé, Philippe
Chaperon, Marcel Jambon, Enrico Robecchi, Alfred Lemeunier, and Amable Petit.[5]
The costumes were designed by Théophile Thomas, who also designed Sarah
Bernhardt's costumes for Hugo's Ruy Blas, Sardou's Cléopâtre and Théodora, and
Barbier's Jeanne d'Arc.[6]
The period leading up to the premiere was not
without problems.
As had happened before, once word got out of a new Sardou
play, another author would accuse him of plagiarism.
In the 1882 caricature of
Sardou (left), one of the signs on the wall states, "Idées des autres" ("Ideas
of others") and another, "Bien d'auteur" ("Author's rights").
This time Ernest
Daudet (a brother of Alphonse Daudet) made the accusation, claiming that four
years earlier, he and Gilbert-Augustin Thierry had written a play,
"Saint Aubin",
which takes place on the day after the Battle of Marengo (roughly the
same time-setting as La Tosca) and whose heroine is a celebrated
opera singer.[7]
He also claimed that he had read the play to Sarah Bernhardt
and Félix Duquesnel, the director of the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin.[8]
Nevertheless, he said he would "graciously permit" Sardou's play to go ahead,
and had brought up the issue solely to avoid being accused of plagiarism should
Saint-Auban ever be produced.
Sardou, in turn, issued a robust denial in the
French papers.
As the play neared its premiere, Bernhardt discovered to her fury
that Sardou had sold the rights for the first American production of the play to
the actress Fanny Davenport and threatened to walk out.[9]
Bernhardt was
eventually pacified and rehearsals continued.
The Théâtre de la Porte
Saint-Martin was packed for the opening night on 24 November 1887, although many
in the audience already knew the ending before the curtain went up.
While
journalists were usually invited to dress-rehearsals, they were expected not to
publish details of the play before the premiere.
However, the Parisian journal,
Gil Blas, had published a complete description of the plot on the morning of 24
November.
Following the premiere, Sardou brought a successful suit for damages
against the paper.
At the end of the performance, Pierre Berton (Scarpia)
came on stage for the customary presentation of the author to the audience.
As
he began his introduction, a large part of the audience interrupted him
shouting, "Bernhardt, Bernhardt!"
After three failed attempts, he went backstage
and asked Bernhardt to come out.
She refused to do so until Sardou had been
introduced.
Berton finally succeeded, after which Bernhardt appeared to
thunderous applause and cries of "Vive
Sarah!"[11]
Three minor
characters in La Tosca are real historical figures: Queen Maria Carolina; Prince
Diego Naselli, the Governor of Rome; and the composer, Giovanni Paisiello.
However, their treatment in the play is not always historically accurate. On the
day the play takes place, Queen Maria Carolina was actually on her way to
Austria and staying in Livorno, not Rome. Paisiello was a Neapolitan court
composer, but at the time of the play he was under suspicion for anti-Royalist
sympathies, making him a highly unlikely candidate for Maria Carolina's
gathering in Act 2.[12] According to Deborah Burton, another minor character,
Princesse Orlonia, is probably based on Princess Torlonia.[13] Although their
names and backgrounds contain historical allusions, the four main protagonists,
Cesare Angelotti, Mario Cavaradossi, Floria Tosca, and Baron Scarpia are
fictional. Their backgrounds are revealed in the conversations between Angelotti
and Cavaradossi in Acts 1 and 3.[14]
Cesare Angelotti
had been a wealthy landowner in Naples and defender of the short-lived
Neapolitan Republic. When it fell to the British forces and Ferdinand IV was
returned as ruler, he fled to Rome where he became one of the Consuls of the
equally short lived Roman Republic. He is a wanted man, not only for his
revolutionary activities but also for a youthful dalliance in London where he
had an eight-day liaison with Emma Hamilton. She had been a prostitute in those
days going by the name of Emma Lyon, but by the time of the play she had become
the wife of the British Envoy to Naples, William Hamilton, and was a favourite
of Queen Maria Carolina. Determined to avoid a scandal, the Queen demanded that
he be returned to Naples and hung. He was languishing in Rome's Castel
Sant'Angelo, when his sister Giulia, the Marquise Attavanti, helped him to
escape. According to historian Susan Vandiver Nicassio, Angelotti was partly
based on Liborio Angelucci who had briefly been a Consul of the Roman Republic,
although the resemblance in terms of their life histories ends there.[15]
Another influence on the choice of surname may have been Nicola Antonio
Angeletti (1791–1870), a prominent Italian revolutionary and member of the
Carbonari.[16]
Mario Cavaradossi is descended from an old Roman family but
was born in France where his father had lived most of his life. The family still
had a palazzo on the Piazza di Spagna in Rome and once owned the country villa
which Cavaradossi now rents. His father had strong ties with Diderot and
d'Alembert, and his mother was a grand-niece of the French philosopher
Helvétius. Cavaradossi studied art in Paris with Jacques-Louis David and lived
in David's atelier during the French Revolution. When he visited Rome in 1800 to
settle his father's estate, he met and fell in love with the celebrated opera
singer, Floria Tosca, and decided to prolong his stay. He soon gained a
reputation as a free-thinker and Bonapartist. Even his mustache was suspect.
Tosca's confessor told her it marked him as a revolutionary. To deflect these
suspicions, he offered to do a painting in the church of Sant'Andrea al
Quirinale for free. Nicassio has speculated that one of the influences on
Sardou's choice of name was the extremely similar name Caravadossi, a noble
Italian family from Nice, the birthplace of Garibaldi, and at several points in
its history under Italian control. One of the Caravadossi descendants fought in
the 19th century Italian Wars of Independence.[17]
Floria Tosca is an orphan
from Verona, where she had been found as a child, roaming the hillsides and
herding sheep. The Benedictine monks took her in and educated her. The convent
organist gave her singing lessons, and by the time she was sixteen, her church
performances had made her a local celebrity. The Venetian composer Domenico
Cimarosa went to hear her and wanted her to go on stage. The monks opposed this,
but after she was presented to the Pope, he too declared that she should become
an opera singer. Four years later she made her debut in the title role of
Paisiello's Nina and went on to sing at La Scala, La Fenice, and the Teatro San
Carlo to great acclaim. When Cavaradossi met her she was singing at the Teatro
Argentina in Rome. As soon as her engagement at the theatre was over, she and
Cavaradossi planned to leave for Venice where she had a contract to sing at La
Fenice. Sardou took a long time to decide on her name and may have finally been
influenced by Saint Tosca who is particularly revered in Verona.[18] The 8th
century church dedicated to her there is one of the oldest in the Veneto
region.
Baron Vitellio Scarpia is from Sicily where he was known for his
ruthless law enforcement. When Naples took control of Rome in 1799, he was
appointed the city's Regent of Police, and quickly gained a reputation for the
cruelty and licentiousness that lay beneath his seemingly courteous exterior.
Angelotti characterises him as a religious hypocrite and an "impure satyr" from
whom no woman is safe. Before Scarpia set his sights on Floria Tosca, he had
tried to force himself on Angelotti's sister, who fled from him in terror.
According to Nicassio, Sardou may have chosen his name for its similarity to
"Sciarpa", the nickname of Gherardo Curci, a bandit who led irregular troops
fighting on behalf of the monarchy in Naples and was made a baron by Ferdinand
IV in 1800.[
CharacterOriginal cast
24 November 1887[20]
Floria Tosca, a
celebrated opera singerSarah Bernhardt
Mario Cavaradossi, an artist and
Tosca's loverCamille Dumény
Baron Vitellio Scarpia, Rome's Regent of
PolicePierre Berton
Cesare Angelotti, former Consul of the Roman Republic and
a fugitiveRosny
Marquis Attavanti, Neapolitan courtier and Angelotti's
brother-in-lawÉmile Francès
Eusèbe, sacristan of Sant'Andrea al
QuirinalePierre Lacroix
Vicomte de Trévilhac, a French aristocrat in
exileViolet
Capréola, an aristocratJoliet
Trevulce, gentleman companion to
the Marquise Giulia AttavantiDeschamps
Spoletta, Captain of the
riflemenProsper Étienne Bouyer
Schiarrone, a policemanPiron
Paisiello, the
court composerFélicia Mallet
Gennarino, Cavaradossi's manservantSuzanne
Seylor (en travesti)
Reine Marie Caroline, Queen of NaplesBauché
Princesse
Orlonia, a lady at Marie Caroline's courtMarie Auge
Luciana, Tosca's
maidDurand
Ceccho, the caretaker at Cavaradossi's country
villaGaspard
Diego Naselli, Prince of Aragon and Governor of
RomeDelisle
Huissier (usher)Dumont
Colometti, Scarpia's
servantJégu
SergeantBesson
Procureur fiscal (public
prosecutor)Cartereau
La
Tosca is set against the background of the French Revolutionary Wars, the
establishment of the Roman Republic, and its subsequent fall in 1799 when the
French withdrew from Rome.
Following the French withdrawal, Rome was controlled
by the Kingdom of Naples, supported by the British and Austrians.
However, the
fighting continued elsewhere in Italy.
The French troops had been defeated by
the Austrians at the Siege of Genoa on 4 June 1800.
Then on 14 June 1800, three
days before the play begins, Napoleon's troops fought the Austrian forces at the
Battle of Marengo.
Although out-numbered, the French were ultimately victorious,
despite early reports to the contrary.
****************************
News of the surprise victory reached
Rome
on 17 June -- 3 days later --
the time setting for the play.
At the church of
Sant'Andrea al Quirinale in Rome on the afternoon of 17 June 1800 Gennarino
(Cavaradossi's manservant) and Eusebio (the sacristan) discuss Cavaradossi's
relationship with Tosca, his Republican and Bonapartist sympathies, and the
apparent defeat of the French army at Marengo.
Cavaradossi arrives to work on
his painting of Mary Magdalen.
When Gennarino and Eusebio leave, Angelotti, a
Republican fugitive who has escaped from the Castel Sant'Angelo emerges from his
hiding place in his family's chapel.
His sister, the Marchesa Attavanti, had
visited the day before to leave him supplies and women's clothes to disguise
himself, including a fan to hide his face.
Cavaradossi recalls seeing a
beautiful blond woman in the church the previous day and tells how she inspired
his painting.
Tosca arrives and Angelotti quickly returns to his hiding place.
Tosca, who is dark-haired, becomes jealous when she sees Cavaradossi's painting
of a blonde woman, but he reassures her of his love.
After she departs,
Cavaradossi and Angelotti quickly leave for Cavaradossi's country villa.
Baron
Scarpia and his police enter the church searching for Angelotti. Scarpia finds
the fan left by the Marquise Attavanti and keeps it.
Worshippers arrive for the
Te Deum which has been ordered to give thanks for the French defeat.
At a large chamber in the Farnese Palace on the evening of 17 June
180, at the gambling tables, Vicomte de Trévilhac, Capréola, Trevulce and the
Marchese Attavanti (all supporters of the Kingdom of Naples), discuss the French
defeat at Genoa earlier that month, their apparent defeat at Marengo, and the
disappearance of Angelotti and Cavaradossi.
Princesse Orlonia and other ladies
of the court join them.
All discuss the cantata by Paisiello which Floria Tosca will
sing later that evening as part of the victory celebrations.
Baron Scarpia
arrives and there is further discussion of Angelotti's escape, cut short by the
arrival of Tosca.
Queen Marie Caroline enters for the performance of the cantata
accompanied by Paisiello, Prince Diego Naselli, courtiers, musicians, Austrian
army officers, and monsignors.
She reiterates her demand that Scarpia capture
Angelotti and have him hanged.
Scarpia must now find the fugitive's hiding place
as quickly as possible.
Hoping to provoke Tosca into leading him to Cavaradossi
and Angelotti, he takes her aside and shows her the Marquise Attavanti's fan,
intimating that she and Cavaradossi are lovers.
Tosca is overcome with jealousy.
As the cantata performance is about to begin, couriers arrive with a letter
announcing that Buonaparte had been victorious at the Battle of Marengo after
all.
The Queen faints.
Tosca throws the pages of her score into the air and
rushes out with her maid.
Scarpia orders his men to follow her
carriage.
At his country villa
on the night of 17 June 1800, Cavaradossi tells Angelotti of a chamber in an
ancient Roman well on the property where he can hide until he makes his escape.
It had been used by one of Cavaradossi's ancestors when he fled Rome after
stabbing a Medici.
Tosca arrives to confront her lover about the fan Scarpia had
shown her.
Cavaradossi and Angelotti explain everything and she realizes with
horror that she has been duped into leading Scarpia to them.
On hearing the
arrival of Scarpia and his men, Angelotti seeks refuge in the well.
Scarpia
demands to know where Angelotti is hidden.
When Tosca and Cavardossi refuse to
tell, Cavaradossi is taken off to be interrogated by the Procureur and tortured
by Scarpia's assistant if he refuses to answer.
Scarpia describes the torture
device in great detail to Tosca, who is then made to listen to her lover's
screams.
Unable to bear it any longer, she reveals the hiding place, much to
Cavaradossi's fury.
Rather than be captured, Angelotti takes poison concealed in
his ring.
Scarpia orders his men to take Cavaradossi to the Castel Sant'Angelo
for execution and orders Tosca to be brought there as well.
At Scarpia's apartments in the Castel Sant'Angelo in the hours of
darkness before the dawn of 18 June 1800, Scarpia is eating supper in a room
lit only by two candles and a candelabra on his table.
There is a prayer stool
and crucifix in an alcove near his bed.
He orders Tosca, who has been locked in
another room of the castle, to be brought to him.
When she arrives, he tells her
that Cavardossi is to be hung at dawn.
He also tells her of his intense
attraction to her and offers to spare Cavaradossi if she agrees to have sexual intercourse with
him.
Tosca calls him a wild animal and repels his advances in disgust which only
serves to increase his desire.
Scarpia then takes her to the window and shows
her the scaffold awaiting her lover.
Tosca finally says that she will agree to
his terms, but only after she has proof that Cavaradossi will be spared.
Scarpia
calls in Spoletta and in front of Tosca instructs him to stage a mock execution
by firing squad with blanks in the riflemen's guns.
After Spoletta leaves, Tosca
demands that Scarpia also give her a document granting safe conduct out of the
Roman States.
As soon as he signs the document and starts to kiss her, she grabs
a knife from the supper table and stabs Scarpia to death.
Tosca removes the safe
conduct from his hand and starts to leave, but then turns back.
She places the
two lighted candles on each side of Scarpia's body and puts the crucifix on his
chest before quietly slipping out of the room.
At the chapel at the Castel Sant'Angelo and a platform on the roof of
the castle at dawn on 18 June 1800, Spoletta and his men awaken Cavaradossi in
the chapel where he is being held to tell him that he has a visitor.
Tosca
arrives and rushes into her lover's arms.
She begs his forgiveness for having
revealed Angelotti's hiding place, and he in turn asks forgiveness for his anger
at the time.
She explains that the execution will only be a mock one and they
will be able to escape from Rome.
Spoletta confirms this and leaves to prepare
the firing squad.
Alone with Cavaradossi, Tosca tells him that she has killed
Scarpia. Spoletta returns to take Cavaradossi to the platform where the firing
squad awaits and tells Tosca to remain behind.
After a few minutes, Tosca goes
out onto the platform and sees Cavaradossi lying on the ground.
She turns him
over and discovers that he is dead.
The bullets were real.
Spoletta reveals that
he was in fact following
Scarpia's orders which contained
the coded message to
shoot him
"like we shot Count Palmieri".
Distraught at Scarpia's betrayal, Tosca
screams "And I cannot even kill him again!"
At first Spoletta and Schiarrone
think she has gone mad, but an officer arrives and confirms that Scarpia has
been murdered.
As Spoletta lunges towards her,
Tosca climbs onto the castle
parapets and throws herself off.[22]
La Tosca had an opening run in Paris of 200
performances.
Sarah Bernhardt, along with the original Cavaradossi (Camille
Dumény) and Baron Scarpia (Pierre Berton), then starred in the London premiere
in July 1888 at the Lyceum Theatre.
She would continue to be closely associated
with the play until well into the 20th century, touring it around the world from
1889, including performances in Egypt, Turkey, Australia and several countries
in South America.
*************************
It was during her 1905 tour to Rio de Janeiro that she injured
her leg jumping from the parapets in the final scene.
The wound never healed
properly and ultimately led to amputation of her leg ten years later, in 1915.
**************************
Bernhardt gave the first American performance of La Tosca in the original French
at New York's Garden Theater on 5 February 1891 and took the play to many other
American cities, aways in performing French, even though on some occasions, the
rest of the cast were performing in English.[24]
In Paris, she had revived the
play in 1899 to inaugurate the Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt where it ran for 57
nights and starred in another major Parisian revival in 1909, six months to the
day after Sardou's death.
La Tosca had its US premiere within four months of
its Paris opening, performed in English translation with Fanny Davenport in the
title role and her husband, Willet Melbourne MacDowell, as Cavaradossi.
The
"Davenport Tosca" opened in New York City on 3 March 1888 and inaugurated the
luxurious new Broadway Theatre on 41st Street.[25]
Davenport had previously
bought the rights to the American premiere of Sardou's Féodora, and had made a
fortune from it.
She bought the rights to the American premiere of La Tosca for
100,0000 francs, before it had even premiered in Paris.
As had happened at the
Paris premiere, a charge of plagiarism was soon brought.
Maurice Barrymore
claimed that his 1884 play, Nadjezda, had been plagiarised by Sardou and sought
an injunction to stop Davenport putting on further performances of La Tosca.
According to Barrymore, he had given a copy of his play to Sarah Bernhardt in
1885, and she had then given it to Sardou.
In affidavits read out in court
Bernhardt said that she had never seen the play and knew nothing about it, and
Sardou said that preliminary material for the play had been in his desk for
fifteen years.
In fact, Nadjezda's only resemblance to La Tosca comes from the
unholy bargain the heroine makes to save her husband's life, similar to that of
Tosca and Baron Scarpia.
As Sardou pointed out in his affidavit, this plot
device is a common one and had been notably used by Shakespeare in Measure for
Measure.
Davenport herself was in the courtroom on 27 April 1888 when the judge
found in her favour.[26]
Following the New York run, she toured the play
throughout the US with her company.
Tosca remained in Davenport's repertoire
until the end of her career. After her death in 1898, her husband continued to
tour the play with Blanche Walsh in the title role.
Other prominent actresses
who portrayed Floria Tosca in the play's heyday were the British actresses Fanny
Bernard-Beere who performed the role in English at London's Garrick Theatre in
1889 and Ethel Irving who was still playing the role in 1920; the American
actress Cora Urquhart Potter who toured the play in Australia and New Zealand;
and the Italian actresses, Teresa Boetti Valvassura and Italia Vivanti (a cousin
of Eleonora Duse).
After the mid 1920s, revivals of the play became increasingly
sporadic.
It was performed in Canada by La Comédie de Montréal in 1941 starring
Sita Riddez,[27] and an English version adapted by Norman Ginsbury was broadcast
on the BBC Home Service in 1958, but by then the play itself had completely
disappeared from the standard theatrical
repertoire.
Considered by Jerome Hart to be the most
emotional of all Sardou's plays, La Tosca's critical reception was in sharp
contrast to that of the opening night audience.
The Parisian critics roundly
attacked the play with Francisque Sarcey calling it a "pantomime", as did Jules
Lemaître.[29]
Jules Favre writing in Les Annales politiques et littéraires
called it a "vulgar piece, without intrigue, without characters, without
morals".[30]
The New York Times correspondent reported the play's resounding
success with the audience, but like many commentators of the day, including
Favre, largely attributed it to Sarah Bernhardt's powerful performance, noting
that there is not much of play, a mere outline at best, made to fit like a
glove the talent and personality of Bernhardt who is all and everything, but who
should or could complain?
The interest never slackens.
There is enough dialogue
and apropos to keep both gratification and amusement entertained, and the story
enobles itself magically in the hands of the greatest living
actress.[31]
Writing from the perspective of the late 20th century, Nicassio
agrees that Bernhardt's performance as a character essentially like herself, a
celebrated, amorous, and temperamental diva, was undoubtedly a key factor in the
play's success with the Paris audience.
However, she cites other factors which
also played a part: the "exotic" Italian setting with sumptuous sets and
costumes, the play's ANTi-CLERICAL themes, and a plot glorifying the
Bonapartists as the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution
approached.[32]
Following the London premiere in 1888, Cecil Howard wrote
that the play was even more popular there than it had been in Paris.
Like
several critics describing the Paris premiere, he devoted a large part of his
review to Bernhardt's performance, which he said held the audience "breathless
and rapt", but he had little admiration for Sardou's drama.
As to the play
itself, I will only add that it is offensive in its morals, corrupt in its
teaching, and revolting in its brutality, and yet everyone who admires acting is
bound to see it.
The "unchaste" behaviour of the heroine and the violence
and brutality depicted in the play, although relatively mild by modern
standards, disturbed not only critics at the time, but also some play-goers.
The
audience's reaction to Tosca's suicide at the American premiere caused Fanny
Davenport to change the ending in subsequent performances with the firing squad
taking aim at Tosca while she grieves over Cavaradossi's lifeless body, an
ending also used by Sarah Bernhardt when she performed the play in Fort Worth,
Texas in 1892.[24]
William Winter went so far as to warn American women that La
Tosca contained scenes which were "not only shocking to the nervous system and
grossly offensive to persons of true sensibility, but which might inflict
irreparable injury on persons yet unborn."[34]
Several early critics, including
Arthur Bingham Walkley and Jules Lemaître, wrote at length on Scarpia's graphic
description of Cavaradossi's torture and the sound of his off-stage screams in
Act 3, which they considered both gratuitously violent and inartistic.
However,
this was not a view shared by Oscar Wilde, who found the torture scene moving in
its depiction of "a terrible human tragedy".[35]
George Bernard Shaw intensely
disliked all of Sardou's work, and not surprisingly characterised La Tosca,
which he saw in London in 1890, as a "clumsily constructed, empty-headed turnip
ghost of a cheap shocker", while presciently suggesting that it would make a
good opera.[36]
Despite the views of the critics, La Tosca proved to be
phenomenally successful.
It ultimately had 3000 performances in France
alone,[37] played in theatres all over the world for thirty years, and netted
Sardou 500,000 francs.[38]
Sarah Bernhardt's costumes brought Empire silhouette
dresses back into style, and the long walking stick she carried in Act 1 became
a new fashion accessory.[39]
Both a leopard in a famous New York menagerie and
an American race horse were named in honour of the play's heroine, as were
numerous dishes, several of them created by the French chef, Auguste Escoffier,
a devotee of Bernhardt.[40]
The most
famous adaptation of La Tosca was Giacomo Puccini's Italian opera Tosca which
premiered in Rome on 14 January 1900 with Hariclea Darclée in the title role and
went on to successful premieres in London, Buenos Aires, New York, and Paris.
The Paris
premiere at the Opéra-Comique in 1903 was performed in a French translation by
Paul Ferrier with Sardou himself taking charge of the rehearsals.[41]
Unlike
Sardou's play, Puccini's opera has achieved an enduring popularity.[42]
More
than 100 years after its premiere, Tosca ranks sixth in the list of most
frequently performed operas worldwide,[43] and has over 100 commercial
recordings as well as several film versions (see Tosca discography).
Puccini had
seen La Tosca in Italy when Bernhardt toured the play there and asked his
publisher, Giulio Ricordi, to negotiate with Sardou for the adaptation
rights.[44]
Before Puccini obtained the rights, the composers Alberto Franchetti
and Giuseppe Verdi had both expressed interest in turning La Tosca into an
opera, although Verdi thought the ending had to be changed.[45]
Puccini's
librettists, Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, likewise tried (unsuccessfully)
to convince Sardou to accept a new ending, with Tosca going mad rather than
committing suicide.[46]
The Sardou ending stayed, but Illica and Giacosa did
make several significant changes to the play, primarily to tighten the
action.
Earlier, La Tosca had been adapted into an English novel by Arthur D.
Hall in 1888,[47] and had two adaptations for traditional Japanese theatre, both
performed in 1891.
In the Japanese adaptations, the famed story-teller, Sanyutei
Encho, set the work during the period of the 1837 rebellion by Oshio Heihachiro,
while Fukuchi Genichiro adapted the play for Kabuki theatre.[48]
There were at
least four silent film adaptations.
A hand-coloured version starring Sarah
Bernhardt was made in 1906 by Le Film d'Art, a French film company run by André
Calmettes and Charles Le Bargy.
Bernhardt was so displeased with her performance
that she refused to allow its release and tried to buy up and destroy all the
negatives.[49]
Le Bargy and Calmettes then re-filmed the work, this time with
Cécile Sorel as Tosca, and released it in 1908.
The Bernhardt version
re-surfaced and was released in 1912 by Universal Pictures.
There was also a
1918 version by Paramount Pictures with Pauline Frederick as Tosca.[50]
Only
fragments remain of the Italian film made the same year starring Francesca
Bertini.[51]
Later films tended to be adaptations of Puccini's opera rather than
Sardou's play with the notable exception of Carl Koch's 1941 Italian film Tosca
starring Imperio Argentina as Tosca and Rossano Brazzi as Cavaradossi.
Jean
Renoir originally worked with Koch on the adaptation, but had to leave Italy at
the outbreak of World War II.
The film was released in the US in 1947 as The
Story of Tosca.[52]
Shortly after the first London performances of La Tosca,
Francis Burnand and the composer Florian Pascal wrote a musical parody of the
play entitled Tra-la-la Tosca or The High-Toned Soprano and the Villain Bass.
In
their burlesque version, Tosca murders Scarpia in the "Cafe Romano allo
Strando", stabbing him with a huge rolled-up restaurant bill and then places one
of the dish covers over his face.
Cavaradossi, instead, is executed by a phalanx
of photographers.
The show premiered at London's Royalty Theatre in January 1890
and ran for 45 performances, with the critic Cecil Howard pronouncing it one of
Burnand's finest efforts.[53]
Burnand had previously parodied Sardou's Féodora
as Stage-Doora (1883) and Théodora as The O'Dora (1885), both of which ran at
Toole's Theatre in London.[54]
In 2004, Lucio Dalla composed an Italian musical,
Tosca, Amore Disperato (Tosca, Desperate Love), based largely on the structure
of Puccini's opera, but with elements from Sardou's play.
The setting was
updated to modern times with costumes by Giorgio Armani.
Tosca, Amore Disperato
continues to be performed in Italy and was broadcast on RAI television in June
2010.[55]
The number of characters is
sharply reduced in the opera, and the work shortened to three acts, leaving out
much of the political motivations of the protagonists.[15]
In the opera,
Angelotti and Cavaradossi already know each other.
In the play, they had never
met before, thus allowing considerable scope to explain their histories and
backgrounds to each other.
The roles of Tosca's maid and Cavaradossi's two
servants were eliminated as were most of the characters in Act 2, although the
some of them such as the Marquis Attavanti and Queen Maria Carolina are alluded
to in the opera.
The gathering at the Farnese Palace in the presence of Queen
Maria Carolina, Act 2 of the play, was eliminated completely.
The setting of Act
2 and the events of Acts 3 and 4 in the play were then combined into the second
act of the opera, which involved several significant
changes.
Unlike the play, Scarpia shows Tosca
the Marquise Attavanti's fan in Act 1, where Puccini's librettists contrive to
have her return to the church following the departure of Angelotti and
Cavaradossi.
In the opera, both Cavaradossi's interrogation and torture and
Scarpia's subsequent murder take place in the Farnese Palace.
In the play,
Cavaradossi's interrogation is set at his country house, where he was captured,
while Scarpia's murder takes place at his apartment in the Castel Sant'Angelo.
The news of the Austrian defeat at Marengo which formed the climax of Act 2 in Sardou's play
does not emerge in the opera until after Cavaradossi has been captured
and tortured.
Thus Scarpia is able to listen to Tosca's uninterrupted
performance of the cantata (heard in a distant room of the palace).
Early
audiences (especially in the United States and Britain) sometimes balked at the
realism in Sardou's play, especially Cavaradossi's screams while he is being
tortured off-stage.
In Puccini's version, his screams are likewise heard by the
audience.
However his death by firing squad is even more explicit, occurring on
stage in full view of the audience, rather than off stage as in the play.
Tosca's final words before committing suicide in the play are addressed to
Spoletta and his men.
When he vows to send her to join her lover, she cries "J'y
vais, canailles!" ("I am going, swine!").
In the opera, her final words are
addressed to Scarpia: "O Scarpia, avanti a Dio!" ("O Scarpia, [we meet] before
God!").
The opera also gives Cavaradossi a soliloquy in the final act, "E
lucevan le stelle" ("And the stars were shining"), in which he reflects on his
past happiness with Tosca and his impending death.
Other relatively minor
changes include Puccini's addition of a singing shepherd boy as Cavaradossi
awaits his execution and a change of the church in Act 1 from Sardou's
Sant'Andrea al Quirinale to Puccini's Sant'Andrea della Valle.
The latter
actually has a potential hiding place for Angelotti.
Its Barberini chapel
incorporates a shallow chamber separated from the main part of the chapel by a
grille.[15]
References[edit]
Jump up ^ Richards (2007) p. 172
Jump
up ^ Perusse (November 1981) pp. 743–745
Jump up ^ Hochman (1984) p.
312
Jump up ^ Berton and Woon (1923) pp. 101–104 and passim
Jump up ^
Girardi (2000) p. 9. This group of designers, working in various combinations,
created the sets for most of the major opera, ballet, and drama productions in
Paris in the second half of the 19th century.
Jump up ^ Joannis (2000) p.
119
Jump up ^ New York Times (18 September 1887) p.1
Jump up ^ Otago
Witness (2 December 1887) p. 28
Jump up ^ Otago Witness (6 January 1888) p.
28
Jump up ^ Hart (1913) p. 121; Les Archives théâtrales (December 1887) p.
346
Jump up ^ Clapp and Edgett (1902/1980) p. 272
Jump up ^ Schlickling
(2004) pp. 124 and 130
Jump up ^ See Deborah Burton's notes to the English
translation of Sardou (1887) Act 2, p. 24
Jump up ^ The characterizations of
the four protagonists are based on Sardou (1887) Acts 1 and 3 in the 2004
English translation by Deborah Burton. All quotes are from the Burton
translation.
^ Jump up to: a b c Susan Vandiver Nicassio, "Ten Things You
Didn't Know about Tosca", University of Chicago Press, based on Nicassio (1999).
Retrieved 3 July 2010.
Jump up ^ Nicassio (1999) pp. 35 and 102f
Jump up ^
Nicassio (1999) pp. 67–69
Jump up ^ Burton (1993) pp. 67–86
Jump up ^
Nicassio (1999) pp. 118–119. See also Burton (1993) pp. 67–86
Jump up ^
Original cast members taken from Sardou (1887)
Jump up ^ Nicassio (1999) pp.
2–6 and 169. The synopsis is based on Sardou (1887) in the 2004 English
translation by Deborah Burton. All quotes in the synopsis are from the Burton
translation.
Jump up ^ Some plot descriptions and early reviews say that
Tosca throws herself from the Castel Sant'Angelo into the Tiber River. However,
this is physically impossible given the castle's location. Sardou's stage
directions simply say: "Elle se lance dans le Vide" ("She throws herself into
the emptiness")
Jump up ^ Horne (2003) p. 339
^ Jump up to: a b Jones
(2006) p. 70
Jump up ^ New York Times (4 March 1888) p. 5
Jump up ^ The
account of the court case is from New York Times (28 April 1888) p. 8. For a
description of Barrymore's Nadjezda, see New York Times (13 February 1884) p.
4.
Jump up ^ Montreal Gazette (28 February 1941) p. 3
Jump up ^ Punch (21
July 1888) p. 28
Jump up ^ Hart (1913) p. 97; Lemaître p. 148
Jump up ^
Favre (4 December 1887) p. 361. Quote in the original French: "...cette pièce
vulgaire, sans intrigue, sans caractères, sans moeurs."
Jump up ^ New York
Times (12 December 1987) p. 2
Jump up ^ Nicassio (1999) pp. 13 and 15
Jump
up ^ Howard (1888) pp. 97–98
Jump up ^ Quoted in Savran (2009) p. 229
Jump
up ^ See Walkley (1892/2009) pp. 86–91; Lemaître (28 November 1887) pp. 136–148;
and Mason (1906/2008) p. 441
Jump up ^ Quoted in Baker (2009)
Jump up ^
Fisher (2005) p. 21
Jump up ^ Richards (2007) p. 172. The equivalent of
500,000 French francs in 1900 was over 1 million US dollars in 2006
Jump up ^
Severa (1995) p. 375; Reading Eagle (11 November 1888)
Jump up ^ See New York
Times (15 October 1894) p. 2 and (5 June 1891) p. 3; James (2006) p. 144 and
passim. Recipes for Mousseline of salmon à la Tosca and consomme Tosca can be
found in Escoffier's A Guide to Modern Cookery. Other dishes included Sorbet
Tosca, Tosca Punch, Sole Tosca, and Saddle of veal à la Tosca.
Jump up ^
Carner (1985) p. 12
Jump up ^ Fisher (2005) p. 23
Jump up ^ "Opera
Statistics". Operabase. Retrieved 8 May 2011.
Jump up ^ Phillips-Matz, pp.
106–107.
Jump up ^ Carner (1985) p. 14
Jump up ^ Nicassio (1999) pp.
272–274
Jump up ^ Hall (1888)
Jump up ^ Mastrangelo (January 2002) pp.
14–16
Jump up ^ Wynn (2003) p. 193
Jump up ^ Berkeley Daily Gazette (27
May 1918) p. 3
Jump up ^ Amazonas (2004) p. 154
Jump up ^ Durgnat (1974)
p. 213; Crowther (19 December 1947)
Jump up ^ Howard (1891) pp. 6–8 (contains
a detailed description of the show). See also Stape and Simmons (2007) p.
108
Jump up ^ Adams (1891) pp. 172–173 (contains the lyrics for one of the
songs from the show, "I am the Bad Baron Scarpia")
Jump up ^ See Horowitz (31
May 2004); Corriere della Sera (11 December 2009); Il Giornale (3 June 2010);
and www.toscamoredisperato.it
Jump up ^ "canaille" can also be translated as
"scum".
Sources[edit]
Adams, William Davenport, A Book of Burlesque,
Sketches of English Stage Travestie and Parody, Henry & Co.,
1891
Amazonas, Lee "Guerilla Cinematheque Comes of Age: The Pacific Film
Archive", Chronicle of the University of California, Spring 2004, pp.
147–159
(Les) Archives théâtrales, December 1887, p. 346
Arthur, George,
Sarah Bernhardt (originally published in 1923), Read Books, 2008. ISBN
1-4437-4068-3
Baker, Evan, "Sardou and Sardoodledom, Puccini and Tosca",
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Berkeley
Daily Gazette, "Pauline Frederick in "La Tosca" Feature at the Strand Theater",
27 May 1918, p. 3. Retrieved 9 July 2010.
Berton, Thérèse Meilhan and Woon,
Basil, Sarah Bernhardt as I knew her, Hurst & Blackett, 1923
Burton,
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Carner, Mosco, Giacomo Puccini, Tosca,
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Clapp, John B. and
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A novel, Rand, McNally & Company, 1888
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the Sardou Plays, J.B.Lippincott, 1913
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Pan Macmillan, 2003. ISBN 0-330-48864-3
Horowitz, Jason, "Roll Over, Puccini:
'Tosca' Has Been Pumped Up and Plugged In", New York Times, 31 May 2004.
Retrieved 9 July 2010.
Howard, Cecil, "La Tosca", The Theatre, Vol. XIL,
July–December 1888, pp. 97–98
Howard, Cecil, Dramatic Notes: A Yearbook of
the Stage, Hutchinson & Co., 1891
James, Kenneth, Escoffier: The King of
Chefs, Continuum International Publishing Group, 2006. ISBN
1-85285-526-6
Joannis, Claudette, Sarah Bernhardt: Reine de l'attitude et
princesse des gestes, Payot, 2000. ISBN 2-228-89357-9
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Showmen & Angels: A Theatrical History of Fort Worth from 1873–2001, TCU
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française d'imprimerie
Mason, Stuart, Bibliography of Oscar Wilde (originally
published in 1906), Read Books, 2008. ISBN 1-4437-2845-4
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Matilde, "The Meijin Kurabe of Sanyutei Encho: An Original Approach to Western
Drama in Japan", The Japan Foundation Newsletter, XXIX/No. 2, January 2002, pp.
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"Modjeska in a New Play", 13 February 1884, p. 4. Retrieved 9 July 2010.
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Success of Her Reappearance", 12 December 1887, p. 2
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Theatre Opened", 4 March 1888, p. 5. Retrieved 9 July 2010.
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Vandiver, Tosca's Rome: The Play and the Opera in Historical Perspective,
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"Sarah La Tosca", Vol. XCIV, 21 July 1888, p. 28.
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External links[edit]
Victorien Sardou:
La Tosca – Complete play in the original French on Project Gutenberg
La Tosca
at the Internet Archive (scanned books original editions)
Giacomo Puccini:
Tosca – Complete libretto of the opera in the original Italian and in English
translation by William Beatty-Kingston at the Internet Archive
Retrieved from
"http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=La_Tosca&oldid=566279319"
Categories:
1887 plays
Plays adapted into films
Plays by Victorien
Sardou
Historical plays
Saturday, November 9, 2013
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