TOSCA

Speranza

"La Tosca" è un'opera lirica in tre atti di Giacomo Puccini, su libretto di Giuseppe Giacosa e Luigi Illica.

La prima rappresentazione si tenne a Roma, al Teatro Costanzi, il 14 gennaio 1900.


Il libretto deriva dalla "Tosca" di Vittoriano Sardou, il dramma rappresentato per la prima volta il 24 novembre 1887 al Théatre de la Porte-Saint-Martino di Parigi, il cui successo fu legato soprattutto all'interpretazione di Sarah Bernhardt.

 

Musica
Giacomo Puccini
 

 

Libretto
Giuseppe Giacosa
Luigi Illica
 

 

Fonti letterarie
La Tosca
 di Victorien Sardou

 

Atti
tre

 

Epoca di composizione
primavera 1896 - ottobre 1899

 

Prima rappr.
14 gennaio 1900

 

Teatro
Roma, Teatro Costanzi

 

Personaggi

 

Floria Tosca,
celebre cantante (soprano)

Mario Cavaradossi, pittore (tenore)

Il Barone Scarpia, capo della polizia
(baritono)

Cesare Angelotti (basso)

Il Sagrestano (basso)

Spoletta, agente di polizia (tenore)

Sciarrone, Gendarme (basso)

Un carceriere (basso)

Un pastore (voce bianca)
 

Durante una tournée, La Tosca di Sardou venne rappresentata anche al Teatro dei Filodrammatici di Milano, all'inizio del 1889, e Giacomo Puccini vi assistette, rimanendone molto colpito.

Così Puccini cominciò a pensare di ricavarne un'opera.

Ne parlò con l'editore Giulio Ricordi, chiedendogli di interessarsi ai diritti dell’opera per avere l’autorizzazione a musicarla.

Sardou non oppose un netto rifiuto ma dimostrò freddezza.

In ogni modo alla fine del 1893 Ricordi ottenne l'autorizzazione a musicarla, anche se a favore di un altro compositore, Alberto Franchetti, che aveva da poco trionfato con Cristoforo Colombo (1892).

Luigi Illica preparò l'abbozzo del libretto, che fece approvare da Sardou in presenza di Giulio Ricordi e Giuseppe Verdi (quest'ultimo, a Parigi per la prima francese di Otello, confiderà qualche anno più tardi al suo biografo che, se non fosse stato per l'età, avrebbe voluto lui stesso musicare Tosca).

Dopo pochi mesi Franchetti rinunciò a comporre l'opera.

 Così Ricordi commissionò l'opera a Puccini, nel 1895.

Cominciò il lavoro qualche mese dopo il successo de "Scene della vita di boemia", nella tarda primavera del 1896.

Partecipò alla stesura del libretto anche Giuseppe Giacosa, anche se riteneva il soggetto poco poetico e sosteneva che il successo dell’opera era dato dalla bravura della Bernhardt e non dal testo.

Dopo alcuni contrasti e ripensamenti, nell'ottobre 1899 l’opera fu completata e il 14 gennaio 1900 venne rappresentata al Teatro Costanzi di Roma, con il soprano Ariclea Darclée nel ruolo di Tosca, il tenore Emilio de Marchi nei panni di Mario Cavaradossi e il baritono Eugenio Giraldoni come il Barone  Scarpia.

All'evento erano presenti, tra gli altri, il presidente del Consiglio Pelloux e la regina Margherita di Savoia.

La serata fu nervosa, a causa di alcuni spettatori ritardatari il direttore d'orchestra Leopoldo Mugnone fu costretto a interrompere l'esecuzione e ricominciare da capo.

Inizialmente criticata da una parte della stampa, che si attendeva un lavoro più in linea con le due precedenti opere di Puccini, Tosca si affermò ben presto in repertorio e nel giro di tre anni fu rappresentata nei maggiori teatri lirici del mondo.

Il libretto fu ricavato dal dramma omonimo di Victorien Sardou, ma fu ridotto da cinque a tre atti e snellito di molti particolari che costituivano la cornice storica realistica del dramma in prosa.

Vennero inoltre eliminati moltissimi personaggi secondari, tra cui Giovanni Paisiello, che compariva in persona alle prese con la famosa cantante, e la vicenda si concentrò principalmente sul triangolo Scarpia - ­Tosca - Cavaradossi, delineando le linee principali dei caratteri, anche se a scapito delle concatenazioni logiche degli avvenimenti.

Il dramma dell'amore perseguitato interessava Puccini più del grande affresco storico condito di delitti e di sangue.


Tosca è considerata l'opera più drammatica di Puccini, ricca com'è di colpi di scena e di trovate che tengono lo spettatore in costante tensione.

Il discorso musicale si evolve in modo altrettanto rapido, caratterizzato da incisi tematici brevi e taglienti, spesso costruiti su armonie dissonanti, come quella prodotta dalla successione degli accordi del tema di Scarpia che apre l'opera: Si bemolle maggiore, La bemolle maggiore, Mi maggiore (il primo e l'ultimo dei quali in relazione di tritono).

La vena melodica di Puccini ha modo di emergere nei duetti tra Tosca e Mario, nonché nelle tre celebri romanze, una per atto ("Recondita armonia", "Vissi d'arte", "E lucevan le stelle"), che rallentano in direzione lirica la concitazione della vicenda.

L'acme drammatico è invece costituito dal secondo atto, che vede come protagonista il sadico barone Scarpia, nel quale l'orchestra pucciniana assume sonorità che anticipano l'estetica dell'espressionismo musicale.


L'azione si svolge a Roma nell'atmosfera tesa che segue l'eco degli avvenimenti rivoluzionari in Francia, e la caduta della prima Repubblica Romana in una data ben precisa: sabato 14 giugno 1800, giorno della Battaglia di Marengo.


Angelotti (basso), bonapartista ed ex console della Repubblica Romana, è fuggito dalla prigione di Castel Sant'Angelo e cerca rifugio nella chiesa di Sant'Andrea della Valle, dove sua sorella, la marchesa Attavanti, gli ha fatto trovare un travestimento femminile che gli permetterà di passare inos­servato.

La donna è stata ritratta, senza saperlo, in un quadro dipinto dal cavalier Mario Cavaradossi (tenore).

Quando irrompe nella chiesa un sagrestano (basso), Angelotti si nasconde nella cappella degli Attavanti.

Il sagrestano, borbottando ("... e sempre lava..."), mette in ordine gli attrezzi del pittore che di lì a poco sopraggiunge per continuare a lavorare al suo dipinto ("Recondita armonia...").

Il sagrestano finalmente si congeda e Cavaradossi scorge nella cappella Angelotti, che conosce da tempo e di cui condivide la fede politica.

I due stanno preparando il piano di fuga ma l'arrivo di Floria Tosca (soprano), l'amante di Cavaradossi, costringe Angelotti a rintanarsi di nuovo nella cappella.

Floria Tosca espone a Mario il suo progetto amoroso per quella sera ("Non la sospiri la nostra casetta...").

Poi, riconoscendo la marchesa Attavanti nella figura della Maddalena ritratta nel quadro, fa una scenata di gelosia a Mario che, a fatica ("Qual occhio al mondo..."), riesce a calmarla e a congedarla.

Angelotti esce dal nascondiglio e riprende il dialogo con Mario, che gli offre protezione e lo indirizza nella sua villa in periferia.

Un colpo di cannone annuncia la fuga del detenuto da Castel Sant'Angelo.

Cavaradossi decide allora di accompagnare Angelotti per coprirlo nella fuga e portano con loro il travestimento femminile, dimenticando però il ventaglio nella cappella.

La falsa notizia della vittoria delle truppe austriache su Napoleone Buonaparte a Marengo fa esplodere la gioia nel sagrestano, che invita l'indisciplinata cantoria di bambini a prepararsi per il Te Deum di ringraziamento.

Improvvisamente sopraggiunge con i suoi scagnozzi il barone Scarpia (baritono), capo della Polizia Papalina che, sulle tracce di Angelotti, sospetta fortemente di Mario, anch'egli bonapartista.

Per riuscire ad incolparlo ed arrestarlo e poter quindi scovare Angelotti, egli cerca di coinvolgere Tosca, ritornata in chiesa per informare l'amante che il programma era sfumato in quanto ella era stata chiamata a cantare a Palazzo Farnese per festeggiare l'avvenimento militare ("Ed io venivo a lui tutta dogliosa...").

Scarpia suscita la morbosa gelosia di Tosca usando il ventaglio dimenticato nella cappella degli Attavanti.

Tosca, credendo in un furtivo incontro di Mario con la marchesa, giura di ritro­varli.

Scarpia, che ha raggiunto il suo scopo, la fa seguire ("Tre sbirri, una carrozza, presto...").

Mentre Scarpia pregusta la sua doppia rivalsa su Cavaradossi - ucciderlo e prendergli la donna - comincia ad affluire gente in Chiesa per inneggiare alla vittoria e a cantare il "Te, Deum".

Al piano nobile di Palazzo Farnese si sta svolgendo una grande festa alla presenza del Re Ferdinando e della Regina di Napoli, per celebrare la vittoriosa battaglia.

Nel suo appartamento Scarpia sta consumando la cena.

Spoletta (tenore) e gli altri sbirri conducono in sua presenza Mario che è stato arrestato.

Questi, interrogato, si rifiuta di rivelare a Scarpia il nascondiglio di Angelotti e viene quindi condotto in una stanza dove viene torturato.

Tosca, che poco prima aveva eseguito una cantata al piano superiore, viene convocata da Scarpia, il quale fa in modo che ella possa udire le urla di Mario.

Stremata dalle grida dell'uomo amato, la cantante rivela a Scarpia il nascondiglio dell'evaso: il pozzo nel giardino della villa di Cavaradossi.

Mario, condotto alla presenza di Scarpia, apprende del tradimento di Tosca e si rifiuta di abbrac­ciarla.

Proprio in quel momento arriva un messo ad annunciare che la notizia della vittoria delle truppe austriache era falsa, e che invece è stato Napoleone Buonaparte a sconfiggere gli austriaci a Marengo.

A questo annuncio Mario inneggia ad alta voce alla vittoria, e Scarpia lo condanna im­mediatamente a morte, facendolo condurre via.

Disperata, To­sca chiede a Scarpia di concedere la grazia a Mario.

Ma il barone acconsente solo a patto che Tosca gli si conceda.

Inorridita, la cantante implora il capo della polizia e si rivolge in accorato rimprovero a Dio (Vissi d'arte, vissi d'amore).

Ma tutto è inutile.

Scarpia è irremovibile e Tosca è costretta a cedere.

Scarpia convoca quindi Spoletta e, con un gesto d'intesa, fa credere a Tosca che la fucilazione sarà simu­lata e i fucili caricati a salve.

Dopo aver scritto il salvacondotto che permetterà agli amanti di raggiungere Civitavecchia, Scarpia si avvicina a Tosca per riscuotere quanto pattuito, ma questa lo accoltella con un coltello trovato sul tavolo.

Quindi prende il salvacondotto dalle mani del cadavere e, prima di uscire, pone religiosamente due candelabri accanto al corpo di Scarpia, un crocifisso sul suo petto, e finalmente esce.

È l'alba.

In lontananza un giovane pastore canta una malinconica canzone in romanesco.

Sui bastioni di Castel Sant'Angelo, Mario è ormai pronto a morire e inizia a scrivere un'ultima lettera d'amore a Tosca, ma, sopraffatto dai ricordi, non riesce a terminarla (E lucevan le stelle).

La donna arriva inaspettatamente e spiega a Mario di essere stata costretta ad uccidere Scarpia.

Gli mostra il salvacondotto e lo informa quindi della fucilazione simulata.

Scherzando, gli raccomanda di fingere bene la morte.

Ma Mario viene fucilato veramente e Tosca, sconvolta e inseguita dagli sbirri che hanno trovato il cadavere di Scarpia, grida "O Scarpia, avanti a Dio!" e si getta dagli spalti del castello.


La partitura di Puccini prevede l'utilizzo di:
3 flauti (II e III anche ottavini), 2 oboi, corno inglese, 2 clarinetti, clarinetto basso, 2 fagotti, controfagotto
4 corni, 3 trombe, 3 tromboni, trombone basso
timpani, tamburo, triangolo, piatti, tam-tam, grancassa
Carillon (Glockenspiel), celesta, campanelli, arpa
archi.
Da suonare sul palco:
Flauto, viola, arpa, 4 corni, 3 tromboni, campane, organo, 2 tamburi, fucili, cannone.
Brani celebri[modifica | modifica sorgente]
Recondita armonia, romanza di Cavaradossi (atto I)
Tre sbirri... Una carrozza... Presto, finale (atto I)
Vissi d'arte, romanza di Tosca (atto II)
Mattutino (preludio all'atto III)
E lucevan le stelle, romanza di Cavaradossi (atto III)
O dolci mani mansuete e pure, arioso di Cavaradossi (atto III)
Marcia al supplizio (atto III)




L'episodio del primo atto «Tutta qui la Cantoria!», con il personaggio del Sagrestano e il Coro di ragazzi in Chiesa, è stato per molti anni (dal 1968 al 1993) la sigla iniziale del «Gazzettino Toscano» di RadioRai, diventato successivamente il Giornale Radio Rai della Toscana.

Curiosamente nell'opera in questo momento il Sagrestano annuncia la notizia di una presunta sconfitta di Napoleone.

Tosca è stata l'ultima opera che Maria Callas ha interpretato sul palcoscenico. Era l'inaugurazione della stagione lirica 1965 al Covent Garden.

Incisioni discografiche (selezione)[modifica | modifica sorgente]
AnnoCast (Tosca, Cavaradossi, Scarpia, Angelotti, Sagrestano)Direttore
1951Renata Tebaldi, Giuseppe Campora, Enzo Mascherini, Dario Caselli, Fernando CorenaAlberto Erede
1953Maria Callas, Giuseppe Di Stefano, Tito Gobbi, Franco Calabrese, Melchiorre LuiseVictor De Sabata
1957Zinka Milanov, Jussi Björling, Leonard Warren, Leonardo Monreale, Fernando CorenaErich Leinsdorf
1959Renata Tebaldi, Mario Del Monaco, George London, Silvio Maionica, Fernando CorenaFrancesco Molinari-Pradelli
1962Leontyne Price, Giuseppe Di Stefano, Giuseppe Taddei, Carlo Cava, Fernando CorenaHerbert von Karajan
1964Maria Callas, Carlo Bergonzi, Tito Gobbi, Leonardo Monreale, Giorgio TadeoGeorges Pretre
1966Birgit Nilsson, Franco Corelli, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Silvio Maionica, Alfredo MariottiLorin Maazel
1973Leontyne Price, Placido Domingo, Sherrill Milnes, Clifford Grant, Paul PlishkaZubin Mehta
1976Montserrat Caballé, José Carreras, Ingvar Wixell, Samuel Ramey, Domenico TrimarchiColin Davis
1978Mirella Freni, Luciano Pavarotti, Sherrill Milnes, Richard Van Allan, Italo TajoNicola Rescigno
1979Katia Ricciarelli, José Carreras, Ruggero Raimondi, Gottfried Hornik, Fernando CorenaHerbert von Karajan
1984Kiri Te Kanawa, Giacomo Aragall, Leo Nucci, Malcolm King, Spiro MalasGeorg Solti
1990Mirella Freni, Placido Domingo, Samuel Ramey, Bryn Terfel, Angelo VecciaGiuseppe Sinopoli
2000Angela Gheorghiu, Roberto Alagna, Ruggero Raimondi, Maurizio Muraro, Enrico FissoreAntonio Pappano

Adattamenti[modifica | modifica sorgente]
Tosca, film-opera diretto da Carmine Gallone (1956)
La Tosca, film diretto da Luigi Magni con musiche di Armando Trovajoli (1973)
Tosca, film-opera diretto da Benoît Jacquot (2001)
Tosca - Amore disperato, opera moderna diretta da Lucio Dalla (2003)
Tosca, film per la televisione del 1976 con Raina Kabaivanska nella parte della protagonista, Plácido Domingo come Mario Cavaradossi e Sherrill Milnes nella parte del barone Scarpia.
In una delle missioni del videogioco Hitman: Blood Money (2006) ci si trova ad uccidere un tenore in un teatro d'opera dove viene rappresentata Tosca.
Bibliografia[modifica | modifica sorgente]
(EN) Dieter Schickling, Giacomo Puccini – Catalogue of the Works, Bärenreiter 2003, pp. 227-243. ISBN 3-7618-1582-4
Sieghart Döhring, Il realismo musicale nella «Tosca», in Puccini, a cura di Virgilio Bernardoni, Il Mulino, Bologna 1996, pp. 33-77 (trad. it. di Johannes Streicher da Musikalischer Realismus in Puccinis «Tosca», «Analecta Musicologica» 22, 1984, pp. 249-297. ISBN 88-15-05632-7
(EN) Giacomo Puccini. Tosca, a cura di Mosco Carner, Cambridge-New York-Melbourne, Cambridge University Press 1985
Giorgio Bosello, La Tosca: resoconto attorno a quei famosi fatti, Palombi, 1999
Tosca's Prism, a cura di Deborah Burton, Susan Vandiver Nicassio e Agostino Ziino, Northeastern University Press, Boston, 2004. ISBN 978-1555536169
Voci correlate[modifica | modifica sorgente]
Tosca (film 2001)
Tosca (film 1976)
Altri progetti[modifica | modifica sorgente]
 Wikiquote contiene citazioni dalla Tosca
 Commons contiene immagini o altri file su Tosca
Collegamenti esterni[modifica | modifica sorgente]
(EN) Spartito di Tosca, adattamento per pianoforte e voce
Libretto dell'opera (dal sito di Radio Rai): atto 1 - atto 2 - atto 3
Programma di sala, con libretto e note, per l'allestimento 2008 al Teatro La Fenice di Venezia


Opere di Giacomo Puccini


Le Villi (1884) · Edgar (1889) · Manon Lescaut (1893) · La bohème (1896) · Tosca (1900)
Madama Butterfly (1904) · La fanciulla del West (1910) · La rondine (1917)
Il trittico: Il tabarro, Suor Angelica, Gianni Schicchi (1918) · Turandot (1926)


video la tosca

Estratto da "http://it.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tosca_(opera)&oldid=62355961"
Categorie:
Opere di Puccini
Opere liriche in lingua italiana
Libretti di Giacosa
Libretti di Illica
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TOSCA --

Speranza

As the general manager of the Metropolitan Opera, Peter Gelb has been on a campaign to make the house a place for theatrically daring productions with dramatically compelling casts.

If this means shaking things up and riling segments of the audience, so be it.

There are new audiences to court, as Gelb has often asserted.

But right now he may be thinking, “Be careful what you wish for.”

The Met opened its 2009 season with a new production of Puccini’s “Tosca” by the adventurous Luc Bondy.

When  Bondy and the production team appeared onstage during curtain calls, the audience erupted in boos.

If there were cheers among the jeers, they were mostly drowned out.

True, the reaction of an audience to a new production, especially when the opera is a staple of the repertory, is only one indicator of its impact.

The conductor James Levine and the cast, headed by the charismatic soprano Karita Mattila in the title role and the impassioned tenor Marcelo Álvarez as her lover Mario Cavaradossi, all received enormous ovations.

Still, the booing, if a little unfair, was understandable.

Bondy’s high-concept staging featured stark, spare, cold sets and dispensed entirely with many of the familiar theatrical touches that audiences count on.

Tosca places no candles by the body of the villain Scarpia after murdering him.

She did not exactly leap to her death at the end.

Bondy had scoured the work, it seemed, looking for every pretense to flesh out, literally, the eroticism of the lovers and the lecherous kinkiness of Scarpia.

Bondy is a substantive creative artist with a long record of achievement in the theatre and the opera house.

And the idea of bringing a sacred-cow-skewering perspective to “Tosca” is fine in principle.

Turning this favourite over to an avant-garde director represents a bigger risk for the Met than does the company premiere of Janacek’s bleak “From the House of the Dead,” which comes in November.

But “Tosca” is one of the bread-and-butter works of any opera company, and Bondy’s staging replaces Franco Zeffirelli’s 1985 production, a grandly realistic and thoroughly traditional show that divided critics but by and large delighted audiences.

There is no reason that the set for Act I, which takes place in the Church of Sant’Andrea Della Valle in Rome, has to evoke the actual place or be full of churchly splendour.

Riccardo Peduzzi’s set here has a disorienting look, with tall brown brick walls and doors to mysterious alcoves.

When the curtain goes up, Angelotti, the escaped political prisoner (in a stirring performance by the bass David Pittsinger), throws a rope through a window and climbs down into the church, as searchlights scan the scene.

A fair complaint about Zeffirelli’s set, which almost recreated the church, was that it overwhelmed the singers!

In its starkly modern way, this new set dwarfs the singers just as much.

And Bondy places crucial moments deep back on the stage and keeps the lighting oddly dim.

The place looks like the drab outer courtyard of a church, not the inviting interior.

Bondy seems to be after mood, intensity and emotion, not logic.

And some of the acting that he draws from his cast is intricate and involving.

When Mattila enters, her character certain that Cavaradossi has been dallying with another woman, she exudes such jealousy and paranoia that her body twitches as she walks.

Bondy probably wanted to rid his “Tosca” of stock clichés, yet his heavy-handed ideas are just as hackneyed.

Baron Scarpia, the chief of police in Rome, charged by the royalists and the church with rooting out the republican revolt, was the baritone George Gagnidze, who, with a leathery but booming voice, has it in him to be chilling in the role.

And during Act I, for the most part, he effectively contained Scarpia’s ruthlessness under a guise of aristocratic bearing.

But all dignity left him at the opening of Act II, which takes place in his apartment at the Palazzo Farnese, here an eerie room of garish yellows and dingy browns, with towering walls and huge maps of Italy.

As Bondy presents the scene, Scarpia is having dinner, or an orgy, really, with three crudely voluptuous women, invented silent characters.

As he sings his sexual credo, namely, that conquest of resistant beauties is what turns him on, the three women paw his chest and stroke his groin.

Are they meant to be hookers?

If so, that is all wrong.

Sex for hire would be beneath contempt for Puccini’s Scarpia.

It’s too easy.

A director need not be slavishly deferential to a libretto.

But what is so affecting about this opening scene as conceived by Puccini is that we see the powerful, fearsome Scarpia alone at dinner — “my poor dinner,” he calls it later — as he plots how to destroy Cavaradossi, a republican rebel, and conquer Tosca.

Here Bondy turns the twisted, complex Scarpia into a cartoonish lecher.

Many Puccini lovers and opera purists may feel that Mattila’s cool, gleaming voice is not quite right for the role.

But what soprano today is a classic Tosca?

Mattila brings shimmering power, incisive attack, pliant lyricism and emotional honesty to her performance.

Sometimes her sound turned hard-edged, her sustained tones wobbled, and her top notes splintered, though in Act III, when she tells Cavaradossi of having stabbed Scarpia to death, she leapt to a high C of ferocious intensity, then plunged down two octaves, mimicking the thrust of the knife into the villain’s gut.

Marcello Alvarez looked a little paunchy in his tight-fitting pants and coat, the work of the costume designer Milena Canonero.

But what mattered was his ardent singing.

Here was a true Puccini tenor, with warm, throbbing, supple phrasing and some triumphant top notes, including a defiant high A sharp when he sang “Vittoria” at the news of Napoleon’s victory at the Battle of Marengo.

Levine conducted with vigor and sensitivity, there at the ready for his cast.

He seemed immersed in the music, perhaps thinking that no matter what was happening onstage, he would conduct a first-rate “Tosca.”

TOSCA

Speranza

By courtesy to Mr. Pelkonon.

With the tedious inevitability of an unloved season, the Metropolitan Opera's current Luc Bondy production of Tosca, received its third revival (in four years).

This production, which transports Puccini's Roman melodrama into a grim industrial setting better suited to Wozzeck, was roundly booed on opening night in 2009.

Despite tweaks, adjustments and (a performance of quality from its leading and supporting cast) it remains a production best seen from the score desks in the Family Circle.

At least the bare brick walls and cheerless, cheap furniture of this post-industrial landscape were populated by decent singers.

Patricia Racette (Tosca), Roberto Alagna (Cavaradossi) and George Gagnidze (Scarpia) have done this show together so many times that the character's motivations have become second nature.

But instead of going on operatic autopilot, all three artists dug up with moments dramatic interest that shone brightly through the gloom.

Racette and Alagna managed to ignore the peculiarities of their environment and deliver a rip-roaring evening of passion, mayhem and murder.

The soprano was in fine fettle, her clear, slightly steely soprano melting at appropriate moments and delivering belts of bright sound when needed.

Right after "Recondita armonia" (when Tosca confronts Mario regarding his painting of the blonde, blue-eyed Marchesa)  Racette actually picked up a paintbrush and moved toward the canvas, a steely intent in her eyes.

This became the focal point of the lovers' duet, played with good humour and easy familiarity.

Racette put herself into every line of "Vissi d'arte", singing this famous aria with passion and meaning.

In the last act, the palpable connection between these singers continued, with surreal moments (like when Tosca demonstrates how to be "killed" by a fake firing squad) having a dreamy, delusional quality.

Protected by their mutual love of high art and belting out their unison "Trionfal," Cavaradossi and Tosca seemed to no longer  believe the harsh reality around them.

Alagna plays Cavaradossi as an energetic, youthful figure who is brought down by his own idealism.

There is evidence of wear on the  tenor's voice.

In the first act, he forced himself up into an over-bright and sometimes sharp register with little evidence of a smooth transition between chest and head voice.

Yet the singer improved as the evening went on, with a ringing "Vittoria!" and a moving "E lucevan le stelle" that might have been the best part of the night.

 "O dolci mani" was sweet and moving--one last duet for these two artists in the grip of their own delusions.

There is nothing delusional (or subtle) about George Gagnidze's Scarpia.

He portrays the corrupt police chief as a bestial, amoral sadist.

And while Scarpia should be all of those things, Mr. Gagnidze plays the role without a hint of civility, growling his way through the first act and (in this production's most controversial moment) sexually assaulting an effigy of the Madonna in the middle of the Te Deum.

This bit of business debases Scarpia into an ordinary villain without the intended mask of humanity that would make the character all the more terrifying.

It's an insult to the Madonna, to the composer, and ultimately to the audience.

The same could be said for the opening of Act II. Scarpia's "poor supper" still consists of three tawdry hookers, somehow recalling the "working girl" Rhinemaidens in Patrice Chereau's 1976 production of the Ring.

The availability of this easy sexual gratification (played with much pawing and drooling from Mr. Gagnidze) makes the Chief's obsession with Tosca all the more baffling.

Happily, the entrance of Alagna and Ms. Racette allowed singers and audience to get back to the business of opera appreciation, as the bloody events of this famous act were played to the absolute hilt.

The problems continued in the third act, which now puts the ugly battlements and industrial chimney set against a background of near-total darkness.

No sun rises in this Rome. (Cavaradossi is supposed to be executed at dawn.)

Also, this revival retained Mr. Bondy's final insult to its audience.

Replacing Tosca's traditional upstage plummet with the fall of a dummy from said tower is still a bad idea.

Relying on a fast curtain and staging the action in a way that renders it invisible to the whole right side of the auditorium is worse.

TOSCA

Speranza

For a time after the critically savaged opening of Luc Bondy’s gritty, spare and somewhat smarmy production of Puccini’s “Tosca” at the Metropolitan Opera, some nourished the forlorn hope that the Met would come to its senses and revive the immediate predecessor, by Franco Zeffirelli, widely beloved for its grand and hyper-realistic sets.

But it is clear by now that the Bondy version — revived every year since its premiere and shorn of its worst excrescences, sexual and otherwise — is here for at least a while.

So it is probably time to stop the comparisons and accept or reject it on its own terms.
      

If acceptance came slowly at the latest revival, the reasons were more musical than theatrical.

 

This though the main singers were all veterans of earlier outings in this production: Patricia Racette as Floria Tosca, the passionate vocal diva; Roberto Alagna as Mario Cavaradossi, the painter and Tosca’s lover; and George Gagnidze as Baron Scarpia, the cruel and grasping police commissioner and Tosca’s would-be lover.

      

A big part of the problem was the conducting of Riccardo Frizza, a newcomer to the production, who allowed the orchestra to ride over the singers in the first act and, to a lesser extent, throughout.

 

All the singers, that is, except for Alagna.

      

Metal in the voice is one thing, but Alagna’s sound in the first act was sheer unalloyed steel, impressive in its amplitude but lacking in subtlety and with pitch soaring literally over the top a couple of times.

      

This blasting approach worked better in the scene of Cavaradossi’s torture in the second act.

 

And in the third, Alagna rose to considerable flexibility in the shaping of words and lines.

 

 

Racette’s Tosca also improved throughout, though she started from the opposite vantage point: clean but colourless and uncharismatic in the first act.

 

By her great aria “Vissi d’arte” in the second, despite some pitch problems there, she had warmed into a character of real dimension, which she continued to develop.

      

Gagnidze fell victim to Mr. Frizza’s enthusiasms early on, Scarpia’s chilling “Va, Tosca,” at the end of the first act going for little.

 

Though he reveled in Mr. Bondy’s seedy conception of the character, he never summoned quite enough vocal power or menace to go with it.

      

In any case, by the third act, with the musical qualities now mostly in place, this admirer of the Zeffirelli production, which was not without quirks of its own, had also developed a certain grudging affection for Mr. Bondy’s staging.

 

The starkness of the sets suits and amplifies the work’s desperate moods and places the music in sharp relief.

      

In this case, the orchestra was in too sharp relief, but its playing, as opposed to its volume (Donovan Singletary’s Angelotti and John Del Carlo’s Sacristan being further victims), was wonderful.

 

Alagna’s “E lucevan le stelle” was accompanied by a gorgeous clarinet solo by Boris Allakhverdyan, after an equally fine cello solo by Jerry Grossman.

TOSCA

Speranza

The Metropolitan Opera returned its controversial production of Puccini's Tosca to the stage with Patricia Racette in the title role and Roberto Alagna singing her artist lover, Cavaradossi.

Whatever else one may say about Luc Bondy's staging, and opera buffs have said a lot since its premiere four years ago, it is still a shocker.

The Bondy version of Puccini's popular opera opened the Met season in 2009 and became an immediate touchstone of Peter Gelb's stewardship as the company's general manager.

The production was excoriated by critics as a travesty and lauded by supporters as visionary.

There was and still is no middle ground.

Opera fans around the world did get a chance to decide for themselves which side they're on when the Met simulcast a performance on Nov. 9 as part of its Live in HD series to some 1,900 theaters in 64 countries.

It probably did not help endear the Bondy staging to the hearts of Met audiences that it replaced a 1985 production by Franco Zeffirelli that was one of the most beloved in the repertory, one whose sets re-created in rich detail three of Rome's familiar tourist destinations.

The contrasts begin as soon as the curtain rises.

During the overture the audience finds itself in what more resembles a vaulted catacomb than the magnificent 17th-century Baroque church of Sant'Andrea della Valle.

And the painting that Cavaradossi is executing looks more like a model for a modern-day perfume ad, complete with one breast bared.

It is certainly not a depiction of Mary Magdalene that would find a place in any church in Christendom.

The second act provides a further jolt.

Instead of the 16th-century Renaissance splendour of the Farnese Palace, the audience finds itself in what would appear to be the basement of a brothel.

Hookers lounge on sofas waiting to service Scarpia while the police chief struts around like Tony Soprano at the Bada Bing.

At least the business of simulated fellatio in the 2009 performances has been excised.

But a bigger concern in the Bondy production than the unconventional sets are some of the stage directions that change the very nature of Puccini's characters.

To give a couple of Act 1 examples.

Tosca slashes the painting of Mary Magdalene that Cavaradossi is working on, destroying it.

And at the end of the act, Scarpia throws his arms around a statue of the Madonna in a lustful, sacrilegious embrace rather than kneel before it in prayer.

When a director takes such liberties in the theatre or the movies, it usually means he doesn't trust the original material.

One has the feeling watching Bondy's Tosca that he either doesn't particularly like Puccini's opera or doesn't think it can stand on its own without some sexy spicing up.

The Met is offering a dozen performances of Tosca this season with Racette splitting the title role with Sondra Radvanovsky and Elisabete Matos and Alagna sharing the tenor's part with Marcello Giordani and Ricardo Tamura.

George Gagnidze sings Scarpia in all of them.

Racette brings plenty of jealous passion to the part of Tosca.

Her voice is expressive but thin in some passages and occasionally has difficulty carrying over the pit.

Her "Vissi d'arte" was acceptable but not exactly moving and she and Riccardo Frizza, who conducted, were not always together.

Alagna makes a dashing Cavaradossi.

His solid tenor is a pleasure, although the very top of the register is a bit of a stretch.

His third-act aria "E lucevan le stele" was the high point of the evening.

Gagnidze's commanding baritone gave a fearsome malevolence to Scarpia.

TOSCA

Speranza

Alagna bedazzles as staging bewilders in Met’s mixed “Tosc

 

By courtesy of Mr. Simpson.

When Luc Bondy’s production of Tosca opened in 2009, the staging suffered from direct comparison with the frilly but well-loved Zeffirelli production that it replaced.


Occasionally a new cast and a different stage director willing to play around a bit can help to tie up some loose ends and salvage a messy production.

This is especially true when the sets themselves are fairly tame, as is the case with the inoffensive scenic design by Richard Peduzzi.

The production returned to the Met for its third go-around, with a promising lead cast of tenor

Roberto Alagna and soprano Patricia Racette but apparently no one took a fresh look at the stage direction.

Paula Williams left much of the original blocking intact, including all of the biggest head-scratchers.

In the first act, the congregation of Sant’Andrea della Valle is shocked — while the audience is mostly just weirded out — when Scarpia awkwardly feels up an effigy of the Virgin.

In the second act, Tosca contemplates throwing herself out the window of Scarpia’s apartment, but can’t work up the nerve.

When she finally does decide to go for it in act three, she runs back and forth along the parapets of the Castel Sant’Angelo, but can’t seem to find the way down.

To paraphrase Orson Welles, there is too much directing going on around here.

Cavaradossi is spared most of the directorial goofiness, but Alagna can be frustrating as an actor in his own right, often falling into wipe-the-brow, clutch-the-chest gestures when singing alone.

He delivered a beautiful, rich-toned “Recondita armonia” albeit while clutching a locket about waist-high and staring to the back of the house.


Even when he appears stiff, however, he can carry a performance with his vocal power, as he showed in a soaring, high-octane “E lucevan le stelle,” earning a generous cheer for his intense and sensitively phrased singing.

His voice has tremendous weight and when applied to lyrical arias, the effect is similar to nestling into a down mattress.

The French-Sicilian tenor came to life when playing off of Racette, especially in the first act, as Tosca’s flashes of jealousy gave way to playful teasing.

Racette’s singing was mostly polished, but lacked fire.

In “Vissi d’arte” she had a few soaring moments but her technique failed her.

Her vibrato was spectacularly wobbly at the top and the last note was noticeably flat.

The baritone George Gagnidze’s voice is less than thunderous, and the direction tended strand him upstage, which at times made him difficult to hear.

He was nonetheless an imposing, menacing Scarpia.

He has a fabulously round, full-bodied tone that lets him sing his more lyrical strains rather than just grating through them for dramatic effect.

In the first act he showed subtle flashes of genuine concern over Tosca’s distress, lending a dash of humanity to a role that is often flatter than drywall.

This sympathetic tack was unfortunately abandoned when the curtain came up on the three prostitutes lounging in his grimy lair, reducing him to a back-alley creep.

Riccardo Frizza got off to a fine start in the pit, leading a first act that was tightly focused and not as swoopy as we’re used to hearing with Puccini.

Thereafter, he seemed to shy away from the score—the torture scene in the second act suffered from an acute lack of intensity, and his conducting in the third act seemed disinterested.

It did not help that the only action onstage at this point was a half-hearted game of chess between Cavaradossi and his jailer (a booming Ryan Speedo Green, in his company debut).

The veteran John Del Carlo was a flummoxed but endearing Sacristan, with plenty of cushion in his voice.

 Donovan Singletary brought a gristly sound to his noble portrayal of the fugitive Angelotti, and James Courtney made a sneering Sciarrone.

(c) Mr. Simpson.

Luigi Speranza -- New England

Luigi Speranza -- New England, a photo by speranzajl on Flickr.