University of Cincinnati

UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI Date:___________________ I, _________________________________________________________, hereby submit this work as part of the requirements for the degree of: in: It is entitled: This work and its defense approved by: Chair: _______________________________ _______________________________ _______________________________ _______________________________ _______________________________ Reading Religion: A Music and Text Approach to Religious Themes in Tosca and Suor Angelica A thesis submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Cincinnati on November 26th, 2007 In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Music, Music History In the department of Composition, Musicology, and Theory at the College-Conservatory of Music By James Massol BM, Bassoon University of Cincinnati, June 2004 Committee Chair: Dr. Mary Sue Morrow Abstract This thesis analyzes the treatment of religious themes in the librettos and scores of Giacomo Puccini’s operas Tosca and Suor Angelica and explores Puccini’s own experience with religion. While it is difficult to draw sound conclusions about his beliefs from contemporary sources, we can infer a general ambivalence to the institution of the Church. The librettos of both operas, though, contain a clear subtext of anticlericalism, contrasting the forces of theocratic tyranny and love, and this theme reflects the anticlerical sentiments prevalent during Italy’s Risorgimento. To underscore the textual polarity, Puccini employed liturgical topics and dissonance in the music for the antagonists and sentimental, romantic styles for the protagonists. Thus, the scores have an active role in shaping the narrative. Finally, this thesis concludes by addressing whether or not there is more to deduce about Puccini’s own faith from the analysis of both operas. iii iv Table of Contents Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..1 Chapter One……………………………………………………………………………….4 Chapter Two……………………………………………………………………………...20 Chapter Three…………………………………………………………………………….43 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………….68 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………..71 Appendix…………………………………………………………………………………78 v Introduction Giacomo Puccini is widely regarded as Italy’s last great opera composer and the final word on opera-house success. Puccini scholarship, though, is more problematic, long suffering from polarized debate—Joseph Kerman’s jibe about Tosca being only the most memorable: “That shabby little shocker…no doubt admired nowadays mostly in the gallery.”1 But with more thorough work from Mosco Carner, Julian Budden, and others, scholars are paying more objective attention to one of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries’ most significant theater composers. One aspect of his life, in particular, that has been overlooked is his experience with religion. Having grown up in Lucca, “the city of one-hundred churches,” Puccini was exposed to Catholicism throughout his childhood. 2 Furthermore, he came from a long line of church musicians and was on course to follow that career himself. But he did not choose this path, instead pursuing a secular life in the theater. By not following this tradition, Puccini exhibits a trend in nineteenth-century Italian culture away from the Church, which suffered from Risorgimento anticlericalism.3 John DiGaetani writes, “For the intellectuals of the Risorgimento, the Pope and the Catholic Church were seen as enemies of a secular and independent Italy. These historical events were occurring during Puccini’s childhood, and he must have been affected by the dominant intellectual 1 Joseph Kerman, Opera as Drama: New and Revised Edition (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988), 205. 2 “La città delle cento chiese” is a common Lucchese saying. 3 David I. Kertzer, “Religion and Society, 1789−1892,” in Italy and the Nineteenth Century, ed. John A. Davis (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 181−205. 1 movement of this period.”4 Whether this socio-cultural environment directly influenced Puccini is hard to know, but the political background was shaping the lives of most nineteenth-century Italians. It has been shown, for example, that Verdi’s views were influenced by the Risorgimento, and it is no intellectual leap to assume that Puccini had similar exposure to this ideology.5 With this context in mind, one can begin to view Puccini’s operas as an expression of time and place, namely fin-de-siècle Catholic Europe. Although situated in a variety of settings, La Boheme, Tosca, La Rondine, and Il Trittico all exhibit the contemporary cultural milieu, ranging from the lower classes to the Catholic hierarchy. The operas that deal explicitly with religion, however, are Tosca and Suor Angelica, which simultaneously present both their own historical context and that of Puccini’s Italy. Although Tosca is a tour de force of drama, passion, and violence, the story is presented over the background of a corrupt religious environment. The plot revolves around Cavaradossi and Tosca’s relationship, while Scarpia, Rome’s Chief of Police with clerical ties, impinges on their lives, ultimately representing the lethal influence of Church-State power. Suor Angelica is a milder work set in a convent and focuses on a mother’s maternal love. Like Tosca, the opera also depicts close ties between sacred and secular authority. After bearing an illegitimate son, Angelica’s family forced her to enter the convent. Thus, the plots of both operas deal with anticlericalism and love to varying degrees, sometimes pitting the two against one another. Through a discussion of 4 John Louis DiGaetani, Puccini the Thinker: The Composer’s Intellectual and Dramatic Development (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 1987), 12. 5 William Albert Herrmann Jr., “Religion in the Operas of Giuseppe Verdi” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1963). 2 Puccini’s experience with religion and a detailed examination of both operas, this thesis explores how religion is presented through the text and music of Tosca and Suor Angelica. Although sacred themes are most evident in the librettos, Puccini’s musical setting adds another narrative level to the text, thereby influencing the interpretation of religion. Furthermore, applying this approach to Suor Angelica will shed new light on the discussion, which chiefly concerns Tosca and Puccini’s theatrical style. 3 Chapter One Lucca or La Scala? Spirituality, Opera, and a Family of Church Musicians “When I heard Aida at Pisa, I felt that a musical window had opened for me.” −Giacomo Puccini1 It should be acknowledged from the start that little is known about Puccini’s personal views on religion. He wrote no essay or definitive letter on the subject, but there are many small details that paint a picture of his beliefs. Born on December 22, 1958, just three years before the unification of Italy in 1861, Puccini was raised in an era of Church- State conflict as secular Italy was breaking away from Papal power. DiGaetani claims that as a result of the Risorgimento, Puccini viewed the Catholic Church as standing in the way of a united Italy, asserting excessive temporal power.2 For DiGaetani this historical perspective plays a significant role in the creation of his operas. Concerning Tosca, he writes, “The mixture of politics, Catholicism, and the sexual bargain of Scarpia—offering Tosca her lover’s freedom in exchange for sex with her—provided an irresistible combination to Puccini and his librettists.”3 But with Suor Angelica DiGaetani takes his position to the extreme, noting that the dark imagery of the “dying day reflects Puccini’s view of this repressive religion as a death-centered cult that has aligned itself 1 Mosco Carner, Puccini: A Critical Biography (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1992), 20. 2 DiGaetani, 21. “Puccini, like most Italians of the period, saw the Catholic Church as one of the principal stumbling blocks to the freedom and unification of Italy. In fact, the problems with the Church and the independent Italian state would continue until Mussolini’s famous conciliatory Lateran Treaties with the Catholic Church in 1929, which established Vatican City as the independent headquarters for the Pope and the Catholic Church. Before that, Italian Catholics (the majority of them) were torn between allegiance to an independent and free Italy and Catholicism.” 3 Ibid. 4 with the wealthy and powerful and serves their purposes.”4 Thus, DiGaetani takes clues from the operas to justify a portrayal of Puccini as staunchly anti-Catholic. DiGaetani, though, is only one voice of many, representing the most unqualified side of the debate; and, as will be seen later, this categorical position does not agree with Puccini’s own enigmatic statements on the subject. Others, like Susan Vandiver Nicassio and William Berger, have studied Tosca from historical angles, contextualizing its representation of religious authority, and have a more balanced interpretation of Puccini’s relationship to his operas. In comparing Victorien Sardou’s play (Puccini’s source) and the opera, Nicassio writes that Sardou “used religion as a contrast to political liberalism; Puccini, who put no more faith in political liberalism than he put in the Church, presents both Church and State as hostile, and ultimately fatal, to the individual’s futile struggle for happiness.”5 She furthermore examines Puccini’s complex relationship with Catholicism, noting that he admired one’s personal spirituality, once telling the priest Dante Del Fiorentino: “I am just a poor Christian,

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