Puccini's Tosca

[zamyrabyrd]

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.

Madame Butterfly is a fine, tightly constructed piece of music. The musical interlude before the last scene of Act II shows Puccini was no orchestral lightweight.  (I was always fascinated with his use of augmented 5ths in this opera and how he ties together so well the musical material of Act I right up to its end.)

Tosca is also tight but fast moving, keeping up the tension even in the albeit slower or more tender moments like the duet between Tosca and Cavaradossi in the first act.

The above are not operas in which one can cut and paste arias, although the last one given to the tenor in Butterfly allegedly was added later.

ZB

[Guido]

Oh my goodness - so much to react to!

First let me just say that obviously I don't agree with all those opinions in the article I linked to - the link was merely to point out to DarkAngel that in fact many critics did not like the work. I am sure that many critics also do.

I remain puzzled at your moral indignation at Tosca, yet your relish for Salome.

Strauss music is filthy when the subject matter is filthy - it is entirely fitting to the libretto and the characters he is trying to bring to life onstage. (It's worth mentioning that he is never judgemental - he just presents the characters as they are and we are never told that we are meant to hate them. This I find quite interesting. This is just a side issue though.) I'm certainly not a prude, and it's not the subject matter per se of Puccini that I dislike - as I say Strauss' treatment of the lurid plots in Salome and Elektra is just great for the reasons I've outlined - but Puccini couches his cruelty in the most saccharine sentimentality imaginable which makes me feel queesy because it's all the more sinister for this - and I'm not sure that this is his expressive intent. It's not the acts themselves but how they are presented. My main issue with it though is not a moral one, but a musical one, though the two are linked.

Strauss and intellectual rigour - not sure I agree either, but I think Ariadne and especially Capriccio (possibly my favourite opera(?!)) are very interesting on an intellectual level as well as the purely sensual gratification that the music so amply provides.

I'm not asking Puccini to be anything else. But equally I don't need to like taking a ride in a Maserati if it's not to my taste!

Puccini deals in individuals, they represent only themselves in their own situations.

Hmm I'll have a think about this. I need to hear more of the operas obviously to make an informed judgement, but given that it seems that many of his female heroines have some kind of sadistic streak and that the sentimentality is also ubiquitous, perhaps as a whole they represent something significantly darker.

I absolutely don't think that opera is a second class form of musical expression - I was accused of this a few weeks ago too! I can't really imagine or think of think anything that could be harder to write than an opera. I do (obviously) think that writing a great opera is a skill apart from writing a great string quartet though, because the composer needs to have a sense of the stage, what will work and what wont, an effective libretto that they can respond to with approriate music, good characterisation, pacing, drama, repose etc. etc. and that the music (either good or bad) may not always be paramount to a successful opera. Menotti's operas might be taken as a good example of works that are effective on stage, even if the music isn't always inspired. On the other side, Barber's operas contain much very fine music, but I've heard that they don't fare all too well on the stage which is maybe why they're not often done. Of course some composers achieve both (e.g. Mozart).

[Guido]

Please note that my reactions and opinions are all in their infancy! I just wasn't expecting to find what I saw in Tosca, and I'm also trying to work out for myself why I found it so objectionable! It's always useful to have to explain yourself though because it makes you really think about these things. I realise that it isn't the done thing to admit this sort of thing on an internet discussion forum, but I'm not proud, and don't mind being honest. Maybe you'll show me the error of my ways, yet(!)

[knight66]

Guido, I did not imagine you subscribed to that ragbag of observations. They have been brought together to provoke discussion for students.

Thanks for your expansion on your thinking.

Mike

[DarkAngel]

Surprisingly few choices on DVD for Tosca............
I do not have the version above but I suspect the combination of Zeffirelli + Met + Sinopoli do a fine job.
The two version I do own are both "movie" versions and not stage productions:

 

The 1976 Kabaivanska features a younger Domingo and is a great starting point, excellent Tosca by Raina but picture color quality is a bit pale/washed out and sound does not compare with modern releases.....

The newer 2000 Tosca with opera power couple Gheorghiu + Alagna maybe a bit visually overproduced for some tastes, but picture and sound quality are much better and Papano lends great orchestral support

[False_Dmitry]

The above are not operas in which one can cut and paste arias, although the last one given to the tenor in Butterfly allegedly was added later.

It was indeed added later.  I personally don't like it, it's "false" - Pinkerton isn't remorseful in the slightest.  But if it's included, then the trio in the same scene has to be performed in a different key, because the orchestral follow-on would result in a horrible tonality-clunk otherwise. 

Menotti's operas might be taken as a good example of works that are effective on stage, even if the music isn't always inspired. On the other side, Barber's operas contain much very fine music, but I've heard that they don't fare all too well on the stage which is maybe why they're not often done. Of course some composers achieve both (e.g. Mozart).

I have something of a soft spot for Menotti, since I have staged several of his works...  I would certainly go along with what you've said there.  However, poor ol' Barber is staged so very rarely that I don't think his operas have really been "given the bird" by theatre audiences!    I've never seen VANESSA live (I wonder if anyone here has?).  ANTHONY & CLEOPATRA suffered from an (allegedly) poorly-conceived production at its premiere based around a number of technical effects which successively failed each night, bringing a torrent of abuse down upon the show.  Barber was later persuaded to revise the piece (Menotti talked him into doing so, making some judicious cuts and revisions), and the Revised Version ought to work well on stage...   I only know it from playing-over the Vocal Score, though.   It's something of a tragedy that in his Centenary Year this year,  VANESSA isn't getting even a concert performance anywhere I'm aware of

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4n4Lx2RlG0

[Guido]

I've answered this post here so that we can stay on topic:
http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,1236.60.html

[kishnevi]

Not quite pertinent to the current discussion, but pertinent to the topic.

Call this the arrgh moment of the day.  The author (according the jacket) is provost of Georgetown U., formerly a professor of classics at U of Penn., degrees from Princeton and Yale, and past president of the American Philological Association.

So here, near the conclusion of the book (James L. O'Donell,The Ruin of the Roman Empire:  A New History, HarperCollins, 2008), he talks about Castel Sant'Angelo.

The rooftop would be fortified to defend the medieval city, a tunnel would run from there to the Vatican, and Giuseppe Verdi in the nineteenth century would make it the setting for the climax of Tosca.

Head, meet desk.  Desk, meet head.

It's not a book I would recommend for other reasons--most of it is devoted to criticizing Justinian because he didn't act like a 21st century American university professor might act.

[knight66]

I very much enjoyed the Domingo version that was broadcast live with each act taking place in Rome exactly where the story was set and at the time of day stipulated. The final act was of course on the top of Castel Sant'Angelo. Surprisingly, no traffic noise intruded.

The set mentioned above includes that version of Tosca.


I only saw it once, as it was transmitted, but thought at the time that it was excellent. There was one frission that Puccini had not specified; when early in act 1 Domingo ran down some scaffolding and fell.....was the entire opera going to go for a burton? He got up and carried on. Phew! I bet those seconds meant damp chairs for the technical team.

Mike

[DarkAngel]

Surprisingly few choices on DVD for Tosca............
I do not have the version above but I suspect the combination of Zeffirelli + Met + Sinopoli do a fine job.
The two version I do own are both "movie" versions and not stage productions:

 

The 1976 Kabaivanska features a younger Domingo and is a great starting point, excellent Tosca by Raina but picture color quality is a bit pale/washed out and sound does not compare with modern releases.....

The newer 2000 Tosca with opera power couple Gheorghiu + Alagna maybe a bit visually overproduced for some tastes, but picture and sound quality are much better and Papano lends great orchestral support

Perhaps a quick visual survey of some available complete Toscas.....then Maria Callas

Kabaivanska
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9H45MMW7VxA
If only the colors were not slightly faded out.......

Gheorghiu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OIExoUb8jk&feature=related
Physical beauty that makes a believable object of desire.....black background a bit too severe

Behrens
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOGdKbxA3IA
Lavish Zeffirelli stage set.....don't care for the "eyes closed" rendition

Callas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZXwz0gj5fY&feature=related
Notice the searing emotional expression conveyed by the facial and body movements of La Divina
compared to other sopranos

[Tsaraslondon]

Perhaps a quick visual survey of some available complete Toscas.....then Maria Callas

Kabaivanska
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9H45MMW7VxA
If only the colors were not slightly faded out.......

Gheorghiu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OIExoUb8jk&feature=related
Physical beauty that makes a believable object of desire.....black background a bit too severe

Behrens
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOGdKbxA3IA
Lavish Zeffirelli stage set.....don't care for the "eyes closed" rendition

Callas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZXwz0gj5fY&feature=related
Notice the searing emotional expression conveyed by the facial and body movements of La Divina
compared to other sopranos

Both Kabaivanska and Gheorghiu are hampered, rather than helped, by the film technique (and the lip synching is particularly bad in the Kabaivanska version), but both give plausible accounts. I didn't care for Behrens in the role, not really her milieu.

As usual Callas stands apart. It's as if the sentiments are somehow wrenched from her very being. Here we are presented with a woman at the very limits of her endurance. It is not hard to understand how this woman would resort to murder out of sheer desperation.  No doubt the others, even Behrens, make prettier sounds, (this is 1964 Callas after all), but none of them makes us so aware of the dramatic situation.

[False_Dmitry]

The rooftop would be fortified to defend the medieval city, a tunnel would run from there to the Vatican, and Giuseppe Verdi in the nineteenth century would make it the setting for the climax of Tosca.

Verdi's TOSCA would be a tempting prospect, though    I wonder if he ever heard the Puccini work (which premiered in the year before his death), and what his views of it might have been?

[Tsaraslondon]

Verdi's TOSCA would be a tempting prospect, though    I wonder if he ever heard the Puccini work (which premiered in the year before his death), and what his views of it might have been?

Verdi was offered the original libretto, but declined. He was an old man by this time, and objected to the ending. He did, however, find much to approve of in the libretto and was particularly taken by Cavaradossi's original aria in Act III, which was a philosophical farewell to life. Puccini, on the other hand, did not like it at all, stating that Cavaradossi's thoughts in his final hour must only be of Tosca. In fact it was Puccini himself who came up with the words for the climactic phrase muoio disperato!

[ccar]

Manon Lescaut is my favourite Puke-cini (as my dad always said) opera ...
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 dream of attending performances of the two operas with Magda Olivero in her prime...

" If one just sings, without putting in any heart or soul, it remains just beautiful singing and not a soul that sings!"
Magda Olivero

Magda Olivero is an extraordinary example of an artist that could give us much more than a beautiful "voice".
As always, for the purists her "technique" may not be an academic model of perfection.
But, like Maria Callas, the humane character and dramatic intensity she projects - her "soul" - is a very impressive experience.
Also like Callas, Tosca was one of Magda Olivero's most extraordinary roles.       

mjwal, I Know it is never the same as the real thing, but perhaps these may help your dream:

                           http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaIPjW1u1TE


 

[kishnevi]

Verdi's TOSCA would be a tempting prospect, though    I wonder if he ever heard the Puccini work (which premiered in the year before his death), and what his views of it might have been?

Verdi died roughly a few weeks before the Milan premiere of Tosca, and from what I remember of his biography, was not in Rome at the time of the world premiere.  (In fact, from what I remember,  he didn't go anywhere near Rome in his final years--Milan was the city for him. )

It's conceivable that someone played part or all of the score as a piano runthrough  privately, but if so, there does not seem to be any record of what he thought about the music.

[False_Dmitry]

Verdi died roughly a few weeks before the Milan premiere of Tosca, and from what I remember of his biography, was not in Rome at the time of the world premiere.  (In fact, from what I remember,  he didn't go anywhere near Rome in his final years--Milan was the city for him. )

The premiere of Tosca (in Rome) was on 14 Jan 1900, and the first Milan performance was on 17th March of the same year.  Verdi didn't die until 17th January 1901 - more than nine months after the Milan performances, and more than a whole year after the Roman premiere

[kishnevi]

The premiere of Tosca (in Rome) was on 14 Jan 1900, and the first Milan performance was on 17th March of the same year.  Verdi didn't die until 17th January 1901 - more than nine months after the Milan performances, and more than a whole year after the Roman premiere

Oh, yes

Well, what's a year between friends?

However, the point remains that, from what I remember of his biography, it doesn't seem that he attended any performance  of Tosca--if he did, it would have been at La Scala--and if he heard the music at a rehearsal or privately at a piano runthrough of some sort (not at all inconceivable, since Ricordi published both composers), no one seems to have recorded his opinions of the score.

[DarkAngel]

Techno version of Tosca aria:
(things get very groovy at the 46 second mark)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIqpxn-6nlU

Party on dudes 

[Tsaraslondon]

Techno version of Tosca aria:
(things get very groovy at the 46 second mark)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIqpxn-6nlU

Party on dudes 

Oh dear! I suppose we have this to thank for that sort of thing. The fun starts around 3'30".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MR6D7tL38U

[False_Dmitry]

no one seems to have recorded his opinions of the score.

Perhaps not in so many words...  but the ending of FALSTAFF suggests Verdi's support for the younger generation