Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca is based on an 1887 French play by
Victorien Sardou and was first performed in Rome in the January of 1900.
Yet this opera favourite is
intimately connected to its setting – the Rome of 1800. The city’s inhabitants
wait to hear the outcome of the Battle of Marengo, while, against the
background of various Roman monuments, political strife leads to a series of
personal tragedies.
Unlike the Met’s Rigoletto, which I reviewed a few weeks
ago for this blog, this Tosca is
traditional in its appearance and costuming, as we journey from the Church of
Sant’Andrea della Valle to the Palazzo Farnese and, ultimately, to the
battlements of the Castel Sant’Angelo.
 |
| Act II of the Met's production |
This season sees a rotating cast
of 9 taking on the opera’s lead characters. I saw Ukrainian soprano Liudmyla
Monastyrska in the title role, with Italian tenor Roberto Aronica as
Cavaradossi and Italian baritone Marco Vratogna as Scarpia.
Monastyrska is charming in Act
One, as Tosca flirts with Cavaradossi and struggles to contain her unfounded
jealousy, but really comes into her own in her scenes with Vratogna, as she
tries to free her lover from torture and protect herself from Scarpia’s
advances.
Rather than the steady descent
into tragedy that many operas follow, what I love about Tosca is how close we come to a happy ending. Even though we know
that their escape will fail, in this production there was something so touching
about the lovers’ reunion that you almost start believing with them.
What’s more, with Scarpia dead -
the ‘bad guy’ defeated – Cavaradossi’s death, and then Tosca’s, feels unfair
rather than unavoidable, provoking an emotional response much more similar to
losses we might have experienced in our own lives.
The performance felt like a
little slice of Rome over Thanksgiving weekend in New York City – filled with
passion and dramatic in its staging, but still somehow relatable enough to be
genuinely affecting.
What do you think the Secret
Victorianist should see next? Let me know – here, on Facebook or
by tweeting @SVictorianist.
No comments:
Post a Comment