PUCCINI : TOSCA

Radio New Zealand Concert network
Sunday 18th of December 2016 at 6;04 - 8.20 pm
Sunday 14th of August 2016 6.04 - 8.15 pm
Sunday 13th of December 2015 at 6 - 8 pm
Sunday 5th of October 2014 at 6.03 - 8.10 pm
Sunday 26th of January 2014 at 6.03 - 9.25  pm
Sunday 4th of March 2012 at 3.04 - 6.30 pm
Sunday 13th of February 2011 at 3.04 - 6.20 pm
Sunday 16th of May 2010 at 3.03 - 6.30 pm
Sunday 17th of June 2007 at 3pm


INTRODUCTION
LIBRETTO

2016
PUCCINI: Tosca
Floria Tosca................. Angela Gheorghiu
Mario Cavaradossi....... Jonas Kaufmann
Baron Scarpia.............. Bryn Terfel
Cesare Angelotti.......... Ryan Speedo Green
Sacristan...................... Alfred Šramek
Spoletta........................ Benedikt Kobel
Sciarrone...................... Marcus Pelz
Jailer............................. Il Hong
A shepherd boy........... Bernhard Sengstschmid
Vienna State Opera Chorus and Orchestra/
Jésus López Cobos

2015 2016
PUCCINI: Tosca, an opera in three acts
Tosca................................ Orla Boylan
Cavaradossi...................... Simon O'Neill
Scarpia.............................. Phillip Rhodes
Angelotti.......................... James Clayton
Sacristan........................... Barry Mora
Spoletta............................ James Rodgers
Sciarrone........................... Wade Kernot
Jailer................................. Matt Landreth
Shepherd boy................... Cameron Brownsey
.......................................... Xavier Franci
Freemasons NZ Opera Chorus, Auckland Philharmonia
Tobias Ringborg
(recorded in the ASB Theatre, Aotea Centre, Auckland by RNZ)
This certainly was a New Zealand production, 
though Tosca was Irish.
So many of our local performances of opera are lost, 
because they are not recorded on audio or video.
In this case we were able to see it at the cinema, 
and on the SKY ARTS channel.
2014
PUCCINI: Tosca, an opera in three acts
Tosca…………….......Anna Pirozzi
Cavaradossi……….....Marco Berti
Scarpia……………....Marco Vratogna
Sacristan……………..Marco Camastra
Angelotti……………..Gabriele Sagona
Spoletta……………...Luca Casalin
Sciarrone…………….Ryan Milstead
Shepherd Boy………..Anita Maiocco
Jailer…………………Marco Sportelli
Teatro Regio & Verdi Conservatory Children's Chorus,
Teatro Regio Chorus & Orch/Claudio Fenoglio (Italian Radio)
Apparently only men named Marco could apply for a place in this performance 

TOSCA: Tuscan woman; tosca (=tossica): toxic, poisonous,  malignant (but nobody gets poisoned!).
The Opera Singer, Committed Artist 
(I have lived for art and love, Vissi d'arte)
The Old Seducer, Cruel Aristocrat 
(Tosca, finally mine! .. Help, I'm dying!)

When we saw this at the cinema in December 2013 we were looking at Roberto Alagna and Patricia Racette, whose voice does not appeal to me on the radio, but when I saw her acting and singing I almost fell in love with her; and I thought they made a lovely couple; she certainly took every opportunity to hug and kiss with her tenor (did they catch a virus from this close contact, hence the change to Sondra and Marcello?)..
2014
PUCCINI: Tosca, an opera in three acts
A Roman diva and her lover fight a brave but losing battle with a sadistic chief of police and the forces of political repression
Tosca............................ Sondra Radvanovsky
Cavaradossi................. Marcello Giordani
Scarpia......................... George Gagnidze
Angelotti...................... David Crawford
Sacristan...................... John Del Carlo
Spoletta........................ Eduardo Valdes
Sciarrone...................... Jeffrey Wells
Jailer............................. Ryan Speedo Green
Metropolitan Opera Chorus & Orch/Marco Armiliato  
 REVIEW (NYT)
2012
Tosca............................ Patricia Racette
Cavaradossi.................. Marcelo Álvarez
Scarpia......................... James Morris
Angelotti....................... Richard Bernstein
Sacristan....................... Paul Plishka
Spoletta........................ Joel Sorensen
Sciarrone...................... James Courtney
Jailer............................. David Crawford
Metropolitan Opera Chorus & Orch/Mikko Franck
2011
Tosca............................ Sondra Radvanovsky
Cavaradossi.................. Marcelo Alvarez
Scarpia......................... Falk Struckmann
Angelotti....................... Peter Volpe
Sacristan....................... Paul Plishka
Spoletta........................ Dennis Petersen
Sciarrone...................... James Courtney
Jailer............................. Harold Wilson
Metropolitan Opera Chorus & Orch/Marco Armiliato


SYNOPSIS

TOSCA    (1900)   Giacomo Puccini  (1858-1924)
The central characters: Floria Tosca (opera singer); her lover Mario Cavaradossi (painter-artist); Baron Scarpia (corrupt and sadistic chief of police).  All dead in the end.
  The setting is Rome in 1800 (last year of the 18th century). 
  Act 1 Church of Sant’Andrea delle Valle (The sacristan [English: sexton] is a binding thread in the action.)
  Cavaradossi is in the church, painting a picture of Mary Magdalene (not like the infamous fallen Madonna of ‘Allo, ‘Allo), using the Marchesa Attavanti as his model (looks like our Anna Leese).
  (The Attavanti family have their own chapel here, and her brother, Cesare Angelotti, a former consul of the Roman Republic and now an escaped political prisoner, has taken refuge in it. Eventually, when Mario finds him there, he agrees to assist him and hide him at his home.)
  As Cavaradossi works on the painting he gazes at a miniature of his lover, Floria Tosca; he remarks on the “hidden harmony” (recondita armonia) in the contrast between the blonde-haired woman he is portraying and the features of his own dark lady; blue eyes versus black.
  When Tosca arrives she is suspicious, because she heard him talking to someone (Angelotti); it must have been a woman. He tries to kiss her. Please, not in front of the Madonna! She asks him to take her to his villa that night, after her singing performance. She describes the life she dreams about, the two of them in their own little house, a sacred secret refuge replete with romantic love.
  Then she recognizes the face of the young Marchesa in the picture, and expresses her jealousy.
  He explains that he has only seen her praying there (he has not had private sessions); and he manages to reassure Tosca, telling her she has the most beautiful eyes in the world, and he loves her; and they will have a meeting later. But Tosca wants the eyes to be painted black.
  Napoleon has been defeated (but it was only a momentary setback, as the French would control Rome for another fourteen years), and the choir will sing Te Deum laudamus (We praise thee God).
  Scarpia arrives, and when Tosca appears again, looking for her Mario (who has taken the escapee to his villa, and will hide him in the well) Scarpia shows her a fan left by the Marchesa, and he suggests that Cavaradossi has gone off to finish making love to her. The poison works, she is upset and goes.
  As the Te Deum is sung, Scarpia ponders over his evil scheme to do away with Angelotti and Cavaradossi, and possess Tosca. His closing exclamation is: Tosca you make me forget God!
  Act 2  Scarpia’s apartment in the Farnese Palace
  Tosca is singing a cantata in a room below; Scarpia has arrested Cavaradossi and he is being tortured in an adjoining room. When Tosca comes in she cannot bear to hear her Mario suffering, and she reveals the whereabouts of Angelotti (in the well, in the garden). 
  Mario is brought in; he soon realizes that Floria has talked, and he curses her: Maledetta!
  Sciarrone reports that Napoleon has now won the day at the battle of Marengo.
  Mario is jubilant: Vittoria! Liberty returns. Scarpia declares that the hangman awaits him. All leave.
  Scarpia and Tosca start negotiating to save the life of Cavaradossi: How much? Your price?
  He replies that he does not sell himself to a beautiful woman for money. He just wants some intimacy
  Tosca threatens to leap out of the window; then she makes for the door to appeal to the Queen.
  No use, the Queen could only pardon a corpse. Scarpia makes advances to her; Tosca resists.
  He reminds her that they are erecting the gallows; Mario has only one hour left.
  Tosca considers her options prayerfully: Vissi d’arte.... I have lived for art and for love. I have never harmed a living soul; I have prayed in chapels, I have brought flowers to altars (as she did in Act 1); why, O Lord, do you repay me thus?
  She pleads with Scarpia. His response is: You ask me for a life; I merely ask of you an instant.
  Spoletta (his henchman) reports that Angelotti has killed himself, and all is ready for the hanging.
  Scarpia now makes an offer: the execution will be by firing squad so that everyone will believe that Cavaradossi is dead; it will be as they did with Count Palmieri. Spoletta says he understands (with a wink).
  Tosca requests a certificate of free passage out of Rome for them both. While he is writing she takes a knife from the dining table. When he embraces her (Tosca, finally mine!) she plunges the knife in.
  Maledetta! (That is the second time she has been cursed on this occasion). Help. I’m dying.
  Is your blood choking you? And you have been killed by a woman! Die! ...
  He is dead. I forgive him now. And all Rome used to tremble before him!
  She takes the safe-conduct document from his body (unnecessarily and suspiciously bloodied here).
  She (usually) places two candles at his head, and a crucifix on his chest.
  Act 3  Castel Sant’Angelo
  The execution takes place as planned but not as expected. Mario does not rise up after the executioners depart. Spoletta arrives and says she will pay.
  With my own life, she says. O Scarpia, before God! She hurls herself from the parapet of the castle.

We are fortunate to have access to NY Metropera's archives to give us assistance in preparing ourselves for listening to recordings of operas. (Well, that was once the case, but not anymore; but here are some points gleaned from them, before they vanished.)

BACKGROUND  Did you know that Verdi nearly got in first at setting Sardou's French play to music? Then Franchetti had the Italian libretto for a while, but Puccini finally got hold of it, trimmed it, and gave us one of the greatest of all operas.

CHARACTERS The characters are a singer (an opera soprano), a painter (artist), and a policeman (chief of police). The setting is Rome in 1800, the Napoleonic period, and the work was first staged in Rome in 1900.

SYNOPSIS This gives a summary of the plot.

STORYLINE This is a repeat of the synopsis, accompanied by 14 pictures, which are worth looking at. If you download the free player (free for a 14-day trial, anyway, and I never have succumbed to the temptation), then you can listen to Callas, Stefano, and Gobbi singing in selected scenes (a recording I own on vinyl disc and compact disc). I have been telling myself that I heard Tito Gobbi sing Scarpia, together with Marie Collier and Donald Smith in Australia. Having recently received (as presents) two books on opera in Australia (John Cargher, Alison Gyger), I am able to check this memory. In 1968 the opera was performed in Adelaide, Melbourne, and Sydney. Donald Smith (the outstanding tenor from Queensland) acquitted himself well in all three cities. Collier only appeared in Adelaide and Melbourne. Gobbi did not proceed further after Adelaide; young Raymond Myers replaced him. I was in Melbourne in 1968 finishing my doctorate thesis on Syriac mysticism. So, obviously I did not see Gobbi. That false memory must be erased immediately. But it won't be long before the memory of erasing it will have faded, and I will be back here boasting that I knew Gobbi personally, and called him Zio Tito.

COMPOSER Notes on Puccini's life and work.

MUSIC Analysis of the score, highlighting recurring motifs (as in Wagner).

LIBRETTO A copy of the Italian libretto; I don't recommend printing it out, as it needs a sheaf of sheets of paper.
This is one opera you probably own on recordings, and therefore you already have a libretto. I also have Montserrat Caballé and José Carreras (in splendid voice, before his illness), ROH Covent Garden, Colin Davis. You may well have seen Tosca: Perkel opera brought it to Palmerston North in 1981 (I think it was), with Gillian Trott and Cyril Kelleway.

CAST (2007 broadcast, archival, from the Royal Opera House in London, 1950s)
Zinka Malinov (Croatian soprano as Tosca)
Franco Corelli (this fabulous tenor always had to be coaxed onto the stage because of his feelings of inadequacy, it is rumoured).

2010
PUCCINI: Tosca, an opera in three acts
Tosca............................ Patricia Racette
Cavaradossi.................. Jonas Kaufmann
Scarpia......................... Bryn Terfel
Angelotti....................... David Pittsinger
Sacristan....................... John Del Carlo
Spoletta........................ Eduardo Valdes
Sciarrone...................... Jeffrey Wells
Gaoler........................... Richard Bernstein
Shepherd boy................ Jonathan Makepeace
Metropolitan Opera Chorus & Orch/James Levine



Defunct Metropera links
BACKGROUND
UNDERGROUND
CHARACTERS
SYNOPSIS
STORYLINE
COMPOSER
MUSIC