Puccini's Tosca

[False_Dmitry]

I am a big fan of Puccini operas: Manon Lescaut, La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly and Turandot - big, beautiful and extremely well written operas with great music and roles.

BUTTERFLY is indeed an astounding piece, especially the Second Act.  The chocolate-box aria of Un bel di is a favourite audition and concert piece, and in fact even light sopranos can come over well in it.  But the acid test is the Act II aria, which has been the Waterloo of many a soprano.  There are few who can convincingly do both arias and look and act convincingly as a 17-year-old (her age in Act II).

My own view is that it's passionately anti-imperialist piece, and the clash of cultures is at the heart of it.  You can't divorce the meaning from the music here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uv3iYSwlz-M&feature=related

He is an arch manipulator of his audience.

Certainly agreed there.  Singers find him less rewarding to perform than Verdi, because the entire thing is written-out to the last scintilla, leaving little flexibility for interpretation.  I was once involved in a masterclass (about TOSCA, keeping us back on topic) with Josephine Barstow - she immensely preferred to sing Verdi, if given the choice.

[Guido]

He is an arch manipulator of his audience.

Yes absolutely - I really don't like this.

A shame you were so disappointed; there is hours of pleasure there if you can attune yourself.

As I say I love many of the arias in the concert setting - its the music between these big numbers that is lacking!

I am surprised you can stomach Salome, but not Tosca.

Strauss is the master of bad taste and kitsch - but he knew exactly what he was doing, as his letters to Hofmannsthal attest and of course he was also capable of writing truly great music too when he could identify with his libretto (Marchallin's monologue - need one say more?). But Salome would actually be a lesser piece I think if you removed some of the vulgarities - The Dance of Seven Veils for instance is meant to be lurid and would have less impact if the music was 'better'.

With Puccini the kitsch is just the style - he's not controlling it as an expressive paramater within the music - and when the melodies aren't as ravishing as say Visi d'arte then the cracks show. Take for instance Cesare Angelotti's little theme that comes when ever he appears on the scene - that is just a terrible passage of music, there's no getting away from it, and it grates more every time one hears it. So often he covers up the paucity of the material with some excellent orchestration, and you're meant to just be swept away with the drama and not notice. I agree that he is very skilful in a sense and he knows exactly what his music can and can't do.

So many of the emotional outbursts seem ersatz and lacking in substance. Verdi is leagues above in terms of characterisation - many of his characters live and breath and have a real warmth. Puccini's seem shallow and cold by comparison. It's just very sentimental but there's also undertones of cruelty throughout which makes the sentimentality even less palatable and sinister even. Reading the synopsis of Turandot seems to confirm what you said Mike! It's weird - I knew virtually nothing about Puccini and now the nebulous impression I had of him has crystalised into something significantly more more horrible than I imagined!

Who knows, maybe I'll get it at some point, I'll keep trying. I'll try La Fanciulla and Il Trittico, and i guess I should try La Boheme too...

[(poco) Sforzando]

Strauss is the master of bad taste and kitsch - but he knew exactly what he was doing, as his letters to Hofmannsthal attest and of course he was also capable of writing truly great music too when he could identify with his libretto (Marchallin's monologue - need one say more?). But Salome would actually be a lesser piece I think if you removed some of the vulgarities - The Dance of Seven Veils for instance is meant to be lurid and would have less impact if the music was 'better'.

With Puccini the kitsch is just the style - he's not controlling it as an expressive paramater within the music - and when the melodies aren't as ravishing as say Visi d'arte then the cracks show. Take for instance Cesare Angelotti's little theme that comes when ever he appears on the scene - that is just a terrible passage of music, there's no getting away from it, and it grates more every time one hears it. So often he covers up the paucity of the material with some excellent orchestration, and you're meant to just be swept away with the drama and not notice. I agree that he is very skilful in a sense and he knows exactly what his music can and can't do.

So many of the emotional outbursts seem ersatz and lacking in substance. Verdi is leagues above in terms of characterisation - many of his characters live and breath and have a real warmth. Puccini's seem shallow and cold by comparison. It's just very sentimental but there's also undertones of cruelty throughout which makes the sentimentality even less palatable and sinister even. Reading the synopsis of Turandot seems to confirm what you said Mike! It's weird - I knew virtually nothing about Puccini and now the nebulous impression I had of him has crystalised into something significantly more more horrible than I imagined!

Who knows, maybe I'll get it at some point, I'll keep trying. I'll try La Fanciulla and Il Trittico, and i guess I should try La Boheme too...

I think you'd find Joseph Kerman's remarks on Puccini and Strauss to be of interest (in his 1956 book Opera as Drama, and get the original edition, because he softened his stance somewhat in the revision and became a bit less nasty). Kerman, who originated the phrase "shabby little shocker" to describe Tosca, admires Verdi far more and takes a position very close to yours. I absolutely agree that Puccini is manipulative, often veering between the extremes of sentimentality and sadism, but I rather enjoy him nonetheless while at the same time I feel Verdi was more emotionally genuine.

[sospiro]

I never tire of listening to Tosca but don't have a DVD. I was looking for Tosca: in the settings and at the times of Tosca and after some help from a friend & a bit of Googling found this.



It's £25 from http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk which I reckon is a bargain so I've ordered it. LA FANCIULLA DEL WEST is a Puccini I don't know so I am well pleased.

[mc ukrneal]

I never tire of listening to Tosca but don't have a DVD. I was looking for Tosca: in the settings and at the times of Tosca and after some help from a friend & a bit of Googling found this.



It's £25 from http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk which I reckon is a bargain so I've ordered it. LA FANCIULLA DEL WEST is a Puccini I don't know so I am well pleased.

If that is the Fanciulla with Neblett, it is probably the one to get. Keep an eye out for a couple themes of music that Andrew Lloyd Webber might have 'borrowed'.  Hope you like it. It is a bit different than his other operas and yet retains enough to be recognizable as Puccini.

I think I would try La Boheme next as this is standard Puccini. I've never actually met anyone who hated it (it often makes an ideal first opera for a novice - catchy tunes, 4 relatively short 30 minute acts, straight-forward love story, etc). Tosca is a bit staged in the way it is put together, and you may prefer Boheme in this sense as the story is more down to earth (love, illness, jealousy, etc). I guess I am just trying to say that Boheme flows a bit more naturally.

Turandot is also quite staged in this sense, so probably one to skip for now. There is a great recording on CD of La Rondine (not sure about DVD). This is another to consider at some point.

[knight66]

I think Tosca is superbly structured. It is based on a rather wordy play by Sardu. Puccini knew what he wanted to do to shave it down to the essentials.

The characterisation is skillful, though I agree that to get the best out of the main characters, you have to go along with Puccini, I don't think innovation works.

In the play the 'torture' scene is interrupted by a character coming in and explaining at great length about Napoleon winning the battle of Marengo. It entirely holds up the flow of the drama; especially as everyone knows which way that battle went.

In the opera, this news is put across in an exchange that lasts about 15 seconds; the outcome is Cavarodissi's famous cry of , 'Vittoria, Vittoria' A turgid history lesson is turned into a thrilling moment that provides light and colour, that is then extinguished. Just one example of how he tailored the drama.

As to the music, yes, he was a terrific orchestrator, but I think the music exists at a high level of craft/art. I am not going to debate the difference there. It contains very little padding at all. Barbirolli regarded Butterfly to be a masterpiece. He felt the less well known corners were terrifically well written and were tricky to bring off.

Now, Trittico has always given me problems. The funny one I don't find funny, the sentimental one makes me queasy and the dramatic one I just don't connect with.

Mike

[False_Dmitry]

Now, Trittico has always given me problems. The funny one I don't find funny, the sentimental one makes me queasy and the dramatic one I just don't connect with.

But if you appreciate the idea of "stripping out the inessential" then TRITTICO is for you   Three full-scale operas pared-down to single-acters   Each is perfect in its own way.  They're essentially theatrical pieces, and so much is lost if you only hear the music...  give them a chance in the theatre, and you may feel differently about them?

TABARRO is unfortunately only heard in Puccini's later revision these days - the public found it "too much to take", and he was forced to tone it down.  Regrettably Ricordi only issue the revision - something to do with the wishes of the Puccini Estate or other like that?   The first version has more cojones - maybe you'd like it more?   There's a different aria for Michele after he suspects Giorgetta of the affair - instead of the two-dimensional revenge aria we get nowadays, Scorri, fiume eterno  ("Flow, never-ending river") is a much more nihilistic and internalised piece.  (Apparently the Catholic Church had concerns about the nihilism - another reason Puccini may have changed it?).  The end is different too - slightly.  In the revised version Giorgetta only has a stage-direction ("shrieks"), whereas in the original she goes out on a sustained fortissimo top-c''.   This might in fact be fashion - it was probably an extraordinary and attention-grabbing idea to have a singer shout instead of singing, but nowadays they do it all the time, and the novelty value has been lost.  It was Gobbi - returning to TOSCA - who really altered the performing norms when he - rather nobly, for a singer - decided that it was more true to Scarpia's character to sing him "in an ugly way" and break into semi-shouting for parts of it.  He was bitterly criticised at the time in some sections of the press, but we now accept this approach as a valid interpretation.

I notice no-one's mentioned the earlier Puccini - LA RONDINE, EDGAR, LE VILLI etc.  Are they utterly forgotten now, or only revived (viz LA RONDINE) as shop-window pieces for star soloists?

[mc ukrneal]

I notice no-one's mentioned the earlier Puccini - LA RONDINE, EDGAR, LE VILLI etc.  Are they utterly forgotten now, or only revived (viz LA RONDINE) as shop-window pieces for star soloists?

Hey! Not true! Penalty!   

I don't think they are forgotten - just that the others shine so much more brightly. But seeing as Tosca didn't work for the OP, perhaps these will be more attractive as they do have less of what he didn't like. Still I would try at least one of the other greats as it could just be this one opera (tosca) that annoys.

[False_Dmitry]

Hey! Not true! Penalty!   

I humbly crave your pardon!

[mc ukrneal]

I humbly crave your pardon!

Good one!

I actually should have sent you to the dungeons, where you could have escaped to sing Vittoria and we both could have had a nice Italian meal afterwards (alternate ending)!

Incidentally, this quote from Lloyd Schwartz seems quite appropriate considering some of the earlier posts: "Is it possible for a work of art to seem both completely sincere in its intentions and at the same time counterfeit and manipulative? Puccini built a major career on these contradictions. But people care about him, even admire him, because he did it both so shamelessly and so skillfully. How can you complain about a composer whose music is so relentlessly memorable, even — maybe especially — at its most saccharine?"

[False_Dmitry]

at its most saccharine?"

One man's saccharine is another man's healthy sustenance

For all my reservations about the emotional hijacking, I would not be without TABARRO, BUTTERLY, FANCIULLA or RONDINE

Does MANON LESCAUT have many fans?  It seems to enjoy less popularity than the other mature Puccini works?

[Tsaraslondon]

Just a few points Il Trittico was not Puccini's last opera, Turandot was; and La Rondine, Puccini's attempt at  Viennese operetta was written between 1914 and 1916, after La Fanciulla del West.

My own feeling regarding Puccini is that he was a great man of the theatre. His operas work incredibly well on the stage, and almost play themselves. I have no hesitation in pronouncing Verdi the greater musician, but Puccini's operas are so well thought out in terms of their staging that they invariably work in performance, even when production and/or singers are sub standard. To put it another way, I have rarely seen a performance of a Puccini opera, that hasn't worked on some level, regardless of the quality of the performance. On the other hand, I recently saw a production of Aida at the ENO, which achieved the almost impossible task of making the opera one long bore.

That said, when singers, conducting and production are good, Verdi seems to me to be on a far loftier level of achievement. Where in Puccini do we find the humanity that informs Verdi's characterisation of Rigoletto, of King Philip, of Simon Boccanegra, to name but three; the psychological complexity of characters like Otello, Don Carlo, Violetta or Azucena? Verdi's operas can work well purely as an aural experience, whereas Puccini's, it seems to me, rather need the whiff of the greasepaint.

[Wendell_E]

I notice no-one's mentioned the earlier Puccini - LA RONDINE, EDGAR, LE VILLI etc.  Are they utterly forgotten now, or only revived (viz LA RONDINE) as shop-window pieces for star soloists?

Rondine's actually a late  work (only the Trittico operas and Turandot are later).  I've never like it nearly as much as my favorite Puccini operas, the first two "panels" of the Trittico (I can take Schicchi, or leave it), or Fanciulla, the work that immediately preceded Rondine.

Edit: I see tsaraslondon wrote about Rondine's chronological position in the Puccini canon while I was writing my post.  Great minds, etc.

[mjwal]

Manon Lescaut is my favourite Puke-cini (as my dad always said) opera; sure, I realise that it doesn't really hang together, that there are passages less than inspired - but it moves me more than other P works: there are a couple of melodic turns that almost stop my heart beating even if I only think of them and it has a convincing atmosphere, like Bohème, (the third act of which is Puccini's musico-dramatic masterpiece). Tosca does strike me as "a shabby little shocker" (I didn't know there was a revised version of Opera as Drama that tones this remark down - what does he say then?) - I tend to agree with Guido. However, I will agree that a great singer in the title role can temporarily convince one otherwise in the opera house. I say this only because in the 70s I saw Kabaivanska twice in the role in Frankfurt, once with (?) and once with Pavarotti. She dominated the stage and the aural space. Pavarotti was very good - he wasn't so famous then, just better than later - but the other tenor, whom I heard first as Cavaradossi in that particular production, wiped the great P out in the fortissimo cries of "Vittoria!" I made the mistake of going to a more recent production a few years ago - fergeddit. Never again.
I dream of attending performances of the two operas with Magda Olivero in her prime...

[(poco) Sforzando]

(I didn't know there was a revised version of Opera as Drama that tones this remark down - what does he say then?)

I have only the first version in my library, but I believe that particular remark remains. It's the most quoted phrase from this distinguished musicologist's entire career. But there's a softening of attitude towards Puccini in the revision that makes the overall tone of the book less delightfully nasty.

[False_Dmitry]

On the other hand, I recently saw a production of Aida at the ENO, which achieved the almost impossible task of making the opera one long bore.

It was indeed a woeful evening.  If it had been bad, or a failure, you could almost excuse it.  But just to be dully adequate and never lift the notes off the page... now that is indeed inadequate.  The cast, I should say, were not really to blame...  ENO's potty strategy of selling tickets on the names of potluck directors and designers from other walks of theatre.  One elephant on sticks does not an AIDA make.   Why don't they learn the lesson that when they invite an established opera director like Alden, it's an instant hit?   But none of the Ruperts and Pennys have a clue what they're doing.

[knight66]

But if you appreciate the idea of "stripping out the inessential" then TRITTICO is for you   ........  They're essentially theatrical pieces, and so much is lost if you only hear the music...  give them a chance in the theatre, and you may feel differently about them?

Yes, good points there for me. I have known Cav and Pag for about 40 years, but avoided seeing them. Last year I did see them both and was enthraled. The stage performances made me go back to the discs and listen with real relish.

At present my favourite DVD Tosca is Chailly, Terfel and Malfitano.

http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,5368.msg129210.html#msg129210

Mike

[DarkAngel]

Just watched this and was absolutely appalled! Such cheapness, such vulgarity, such a hideous story! Are all of Puccini's operas like this? I can handle cheapness and vulgarity when it comes in Straussian form (Salome is just great!) but this is just so base and crass!

I've only ever really heard Puccini in aria excerpts before - some of which I love (mostly the very famous ones - eg. Visi d'arte and Tu che di gel sei cinta) - but I was shocked at how poor the music was in this opera...

Everyone can have different personal favorites......
But to disparage Puccini as a "poor" opera composer and vulgar storylines seems very strange, if you look at any respected list of 10 favorite operas of all time you will almost always find 3 Puccini operas:
-Tosca
-Madama Butterfly
-La Boheme

Seems he has passed the test of time with public and critics alike, if you are correct about his shortcomings he has fooled quite a few people over the years

I am big Puccini fan both story line and music......and I love Tosca! 

[Guido]

Everyone can have different personal favorites......
But to disparage Puccini in general as a "poor" opera composer and vulgar storylines seems very strange, if you look at any respected list of 10 favorite operas of all time you will almost always find 3 Puccini operas:
-Tosca
-Madama Butterfly
-La Boheme

Seems he has passed the test of time with public and critics alike, if you are correct about his shortcomings he has fooled quite a few people over the years

I am big Puccini fan both story line and music......and I love Tosca! 

I didn't say he was a poor opera composer, I said that much of the music is poor. This is an important distinction. I also said that I understood why they were popular, and of course I know that they are. But that doesn't mean that I can't be disgusted by their content. I think it would be strange to say that the music wasn't vulgar and sentimental - again this is part of the music's popularity - the same is often true of Strauss, an opera composer whose work I love. I don't think he [Puccini] has fooled anyone - I'm fairly sure that everyone knows what they're getting (the replies on this thread seem to suggest this at least) and that he knew what he was giving the audience.

And actually, I think many critics have been fairly harsh on the piece - I had a little look online after reading this thread this morning. This may be of interest - http://www.operainfo.org/broadcast/operaTeaching.cgi?id=73&language=1&material_id=310

[knight66]

Guido,

Thank you for that link there are many interesting comments and insights, some duff ones too.
'It was after he understood how cruel his idea of life could be that Puccini returned to the Tosca project ... '
I defy anyone to be able to say this with authority. It is pop psychology gone far too far.

It is an odd idea to criticise Puccini's take on Sardou because he cut away most of the political background. His purpose was not to illuminate that struggle, rather that background provides the context for a gripping interplay of personality and a good plot twist. It is a thrilling roller-coaster.

I remain puzzled at your moral indignation at Tosca, yet your relish for Salome. The Wilde play on which that is based caused real moral outrage and there is nothing in Tosca to equal the act of kissing the lips of a decapitated head, let alone the preceding pages dwelling on the sexual arousal experienced by gazing on the holy man's pure white, veined, marble flesh...etc.

Puccini's works may be more ambiguous because of the clear obsessions that do indeed come through. This is like reading Dickens with all his pubescent, tiny breasted, perfect little potential wives aged just; sixteen. Then looking at the same works through the lens of his life where the preoccupations with such girls leave one very uncomfortable. But do we criticise Dickens, or Dali for his dubious influences, Caravaggio for his?

I have a bit of a love/hate thing for some of Puccini's works, but that is a personal reaction to the deliberate, blatant sentimentality which he deployed as ruthlessly as thumbscrews.

Then there is this remark....

'Does this mean that in expressing twentieth-century pessimism, Tosca has the same cultural authority as Salome and Wozzeck? The answer is no, because Puccini was a culturally less lucid and psychologically less energetic artist that Strauss or Berg, and lacked their intellectual vigor.'

Eh! Strauss and intellectual vigor. It is clear from the letters they exchanged that Strauss was lead by Hofmannsthal under whose cloak he hoped to gain some intellectual respectability. Where is there evidence of Strauss as an intellectual heavyweight, or having any intellectual rigor?

Turning to your reaction to Puccini, it is as though you are complaining that the Maserati in front of you is not a Rolls Royce. He was not trying to be Verdi. His music was of its time.

Puccini deals in individuals, they represent only themselves in their own situations. Verdi transcends this by putting before us characters that sit in their wider context and, filled out as they are in detail, they are archetypes who speak to us across the stage lights, we learn about the human condition. But, Puccini was not aiming at that kind of experience. If he had and failed I could see the point of the criticism, but he was absolutely at the top of his artistry in terms of aiming and succeeding in what he was doing.

Finally: I assume I am wrong in interpreting your remark that he in effect may have been a good opera composer, but not a good composer; indicating Opera is some kind of second class form of music to symphonic or chamber output. There are some here who do think that, misguidedly. I hope that does not include you.

Mike