11/6/2018 Tosca | Grove Music Grove Music Online Tosca Julian Budden https://doi-org.ezproxy.gc.cuny.edu/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.O0 05948 Published in print: 01 December 1992 Published online: 2002 Melodramma in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to a libretto by Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica after Victorien Sardou’s play La Tosca; Rome, Teatro Costanzi, 14 January 1900. Floria Tosca a celebrated singer soprano Mario Cavaradossi a painter tenor Baron Scarpia Chief of Police baritone Cesare Angelotti former Consul of the Roman republic bass A Sacristan bass Spoletta a police agent tenor Sciarrone a gendarme bass A Gaoler bass A Shepherd-boy alto Roberti the executioner silent role Soldiers, police agents, noblemen and women, townsfolk, artisans Silent: cardinal, judge, scribe, oicer, sergeant Setting Rome, June 1800 In May 1889, less than a month after the première of Edgar, Puccini wrote to the publisher Ricordi begging him to obtain Sardou’s permission to set his play, ‘since in this Tosca I see the opera that I need: one without excessive proportions or a decorative spectacle; nor http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.ezproxy.gc.cuny.edu/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-5000005948 1/6 11/6/2018 Tosca | Grove Music is it the kind that calls for a superabundance of music’ – by which he meant that it did not conform to the genre of ‘grand opera’ which had been in vogue in Italy since the 1870s. For the time being matters went no further and Puccini turned his attention to other subjects. In 1895, however, he saw the play performed in Florence with Sarah Bernhardt (for whom it was written) in the title role. The following year, with La bohème behind him, he returned to his idea. Unfortunately Sardou had by now granted the rights to Alberto Franchetti, and Luigi Illica had already written him a libretto, to which Verdi had given his unqualied approval. However, Illica and Ricordi had no diculty in persuading Franchetti to relinquish it and so leave the eld open for their favourite composer. As usual the versication was entrusted to Giuseppe Giacosa, who to begin with was against the project. There was too much plot, he argued, and too little room for lyrical expansion, and, as so often, he continually threatened to withdraw from the partnership. However, by the beginning of 1898 Puccini had the entire libretto in his hands and was able to begin work on the rst act. In June of that year he visited Sardou in Paris, who encumbered him with various suggestions (‘a ne fellow’, Puccini wrote, ‘all life and re and full of historico- topo-panoramic in-exactitudes’). Sardou gave his blessing to the libretto, however; and Puccini himself considered it an improvement on the original play. As always, Puccini was much concerned with authenticity of detail. His friend Father Pietro Panichelli supplied him with information regarding the plainsong melody to which the Te Deum was sung in Roman churches, the correct order of the cardinal’s procession and the costumes of the Swiss Guard. From Meluzzi, an elderly musician in the employ of the Vatican, he learnt the exact pitch of the great bell of St Peter’s; and he made a special journey to Rome to hear for himself the eect of the matins bells from the ramparts of the Castel Sant’Angelo. The Roman poet Luigi Zanazzo provided a suitable text for the song of the Shepherd-boy featured in the prelude to Act 3, the last piece to be composed. By the time the opera was completed in October 1899 two important changes had been made to the libretto. In Act 2 Puccini rejected an aria sung by Cavaradossi under torture which developed into a quartet with Tosca, the Judge and Spoletta, on the grounds that it reverted to the static pezzo concertato convention of a bygone age. Likewise he would have none of a ‘Farewell to Art and Life’ to be sung by the painter as he awaits execution, despite Verdi’s avowed admiration for it. Instead he insisted on a lover’s anguished lament built around the words ‘Muoio disperato’. And, as usual, after much argument with his librettists, he had his way. More disturbing was a letter from Giulio Ricordi complaining of the lack of a transcendental love duet in Act 3 which should form the climax of the drama – doubtless he had in mind the concluding scene of Giordano’s highly successful Andrea Chénier (1896). Ricordi found the existing dialogue between the lovers intolerably perfunctory, and he regretted the musical quotation from the original version of Edgar (‘Where indeed is the Puccini of noble, warm and vigorous inspiration?’). The composer stood rm. Tosca, he maintained, would be far too preoccupied with the outcome of events to be able to indulge in a time-wasting eusion. In this, as so often, his theatrical instinct had not betrayed him. http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.ezproxy.gc.cuny.edu/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-5000005948 2/6 11/6/2018 Tosca | Grove Music Presumably it was the opera’s Roman setting that led Ricordi to arrange the première in the Italian capital. The cast included Hariclea Darclée (Tosca), Emilio de Marchi (Cavaradossi) and Eugenio Giraldoni (Scarpia); the conductor was Leopoldo Mugnone. The sets were by Adolfo Hohenstein, chief stage designer of La Scala, and the production was in the hands of the younger Tito Ricordi, Giulio’s son. Although the critical reception was mixed – several reviewers took exception to the brutality of the plot – the opera ran for 20 evenings to packed houses. Its success was conrmed two months later in Milan, at La Scala, where it was conducted by Toscanini with Giuseppe Borgatti as Cavaradossi and the other principals as at Rome. The rst foreign performance was given at Buenos Aires in June the same year, followed on 12 July by the London première, at Covent Garden, with Milka Ternina as Tosca (‘a true creation’ according to Puccini), Fernando de Lucia as Cavaradossi and Antonio Scotti as Scarpia (a role in which he specialized until the end of his career 33 years later). He and Ternina appeared in the New York première (4 February 1901), together with Giuseppe Cremonini (Puccini’s rst Des Grieux) as Cavaradossi. Since then outstanding Toscas have included Geraldine Farrar, Maria Jeritza (who sang ‘Vissi d’arte’ lying prone), Maria Caniglia and, later, Maria Callas, whose performances with Tito Gobbi as Scarpia became legendary. Synopsis ACT 1 Interior of the church of S Andrea della Valle The curtain rises to a progression of three very loud, heavy chords based on the whole-tone scale (ex.1, a motif that will connote the villainous police chief Scarpia throughout the opera). The fugitive Angelotti hurries into the church, searches frantically for a key concealed in a shrine of the Madonna and slips into the private chapel of the Attavanti family. The Sacristan enters to a characteristic buo motif (ex.2). He carries a bundle of paintbrushes which he proceeds grumblingly to wash. They belong to Cavaradossi, who arrives to put the nishing touches to his portrait of the Magdalen. He contemplates his canvas, in which he has succeeded in blending the dusky, southern charms of his beloved Tosca with the blonde beauty of an unknown woman whom he has often observed at prayer in the church (‘Recondita armonia’). The aria is punctuated by asides from the Sacristan. A quiet orchestral postlude follows as the Sacristan leaves, whereupon Angelotti emerges from hiding; he is recognized by a shocked Cavaradossi, who hastily locks the church door. Angelotti explains that he has just escaped from the Castel Sant’Angelo, where he had been imprisoned by order of Scarpia. Their conversation is interrupted by the sound of Tosca’s voice outside the church. Angelotti again retreats into the chapel, while Cavaradossi admits the singer, who enters in a mood of jealous suspicion – she is sure she heard voices – though her accompanying motif (ex.3) conveys a dignied and beautiful presence. Reassured with some diculty by Cavaradossi, she suggests that they should go to his villa in the country after her evening performance. Cavaradossi, his mind on Angelotti, responds absently. Tosca is further disturbed by the painting, with its http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.ezproxy.gc.cuny.edu/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-5000005948 3/6 11/6/2018 Tosca | Grove Music resemblance to someone other than herself – the Marchesa Attavanti. For the moment she accepts the painter’s explanation and joins him in a tender love duet whose principal theme, occurring at the words ‘Mia gelosa’, functions as the motif (ex.4) for their mutual passion. Their conversation is not set as a conventional duet until, at the words ‘Qual’ occhio al mondo’, a typically long-arched Puccini melody leads to a brief unison passage (four bars), but immediately the conversational form returns as Tosca leaves, to a ‘leggerissimo’ wind and harp accompaniment. When she has left, Cavaradossi and Angelotti plot the latter’s escape. After dark he must make for Cavaradossi’s villa in female disguise and in the event of danger hide in a well in the garden. A cannon shot from the Castel Sant’Angelo warns that Angelotti’s ight has been discovered. At the same time the Sacristan re-enters with the news (false, as it turns out) of Napoleon’s defeat at Marengo. The church lls with a joyous throng. At the height of the tumult Scarpia himself appears with Spoletta and other police agents.