New York City Opera – Puccini’s Tosca. 10/15/2005.

New York State Theater at Lincoln Center – First Ring, Seat C108.

Conductor: John DeMain; Mario Cavaradossi – Jorge Antonio Pita, Floria Tosca – Carla Thelaen Hanson, Baron Scarpia – Todd Thomas.

Story: To get information on an escaped political prisoner, Scarpia imprisons Cavardossi and threatens to have him killed unless Tosca yields to his sexual desires. After getting Scarpia to promise a fake execution and safe passage, Tosca kills Scarpia. The execution turns out to be genuine and Tosca leaps to her death as Scarpia’s murder was discovered.

I had watched parts of Tosca on TV a few years back, and my wife had seen the entire TV show. Also, I have listened to the entire CD recording before. Nonetheless, this performance turned out to be a great experience.

The curtain opened after a short introduction. It was a simple yet dramatic set showing the inside of a church. A huge cross above, gates on both sides, candles in the front. The tenor soon launched into the famous aria “Recondita armonia” where Cavaradossi reflected on the beauty of Tosca compared with Marchese Angelotti, the woman in his painting of Mary Magdalene. I was disappointed with the tenor’s weak voice, but it was a lovely tune nonetheless. Most of Act 1 was relatively slow, the escape and hiding of Cesare Angelotti (the escaped prisoner) and Tosca's jealousy added some but insufficient tense and light moments. The audience did chuckle at the requests Tosca made to have Mary Magdalene’s eyes painted dark, though. The Act ended with a chilling scene where Scarpia’s evilness was expertly contrasted with the piety of the worshippers. The color of the set turned red, foreboding the impending treachery we were about to witness.

The setting for Act 2 is Scarpia’s living quarters, next to it was the dungeon where Cavaradossi was imprisoned. As if the audience had not developed enough hatred of Scarpia already, here we witnessed how depraved a character he really was. When he described in detail to Tosca how Cavaradossi was tortured, you could sense how revolted the audience felt. It was a heart-wrenching moment as Tosca dropped to her knees and sang “Vissa d’art, vissi d’amore”. Puccini had a great technique with the vocalist accompanying the orchestra playing the melody, and it was used to great effect here. While there was some satisfaction that Tosca killed Scarpia at the end of the Act, there was not much feeling of relief as we knew how the story would turn out. That Tosca tried to sanctify the body of Scarpia just added to the unease.

The setting for Act 3 was simple but macabre. On the right was a stack of sandbags that showed some blood stains, and the Act began with soldiers mopping up from the last execution. Here Cavaradossi sang the famous aria “E luceven le stelle,” reflecting on the world he was to leave behind. The words to this aria were written by Puccini after much argument with the librettists. When Tosca joined him and sang of the future they would have, it simply added to the despair felt by the audience. Mercifully, the opera ended rather quickly when the “mock execution like that of Palmieri” and Tosca jumping off the balcony happened in quick succession.

The audience gave the performers a well deserved round of applause, and I was personally relieved to see everyone that was killed return for the curtain call.

The story would be called over-dramatic, but this was a very enjoyable opera that was well-directed and well-performed. I was a bit disappointed at Cavaradossi – afterall, the CD I listened to has the part sung by Domingo.

An opera well worth the three hours. See also the New York Times review.