The story is a political thriller set in 1800 in Rome during the Napoleonic Wars. Can Floria Tosca, the celebrated diva, save the painter, Mario Cavaradossi, her lover and a Republican sympathiser, from being executed?
Victorien Sardou, the most prolific of the French nineteenth century dramatists, always catered for popular taste. In his play, Tosca, which premièred in 1887, he provided the public with political and sexual intrigue, jealousy, betrayal, treachery, police interrogation, torture (off-stage), seduction, attempted rape, murder, a mock military execution (which turns out to be real) and a suicide in which the heroine leaps from the battlements to her death.
The critics never liked Sardou’s Tosca; but the play was phenomenally successful worldwide, largely due to Sarah Bernhardt, who scored one of her greatest triumphs as the diva. Today, Tosca survives only as an opera by Puccini. The music is perfect for the melodrama and passion.
The end of the first act, which counterpoints the religious and the murderous and lecherous brilliantly, is one of the most thrilling climaxes in all opera. At the very moment the choir is singing the "Te Deum", Scarpia, the brutal, venal, evil Head of Police, is vowing to hang Cavaradossi and seduce Tosca. The sheer volume of the singing and the music plus the sound of the church bells and a cannon being fired offstage (signifying a prisoner has escaped) adds immeasurably to the drama.
Other high-spots are Tosca singing the heart-rending “Vissi d’arte. Vissi d’amore” (“I lived for art. I lived for love”) at the end of the second act and Cavaradossi in the third act singing “E Lucevan le stelle” (“I never before loved life so much”) whilst awaiting execution.
Maria José Siri and Fabio Sartori are singers, not actors, and physically not right for the roles. Sometimes it is best for audiences to shut their eyes and just listen to the singing and the music conducted by Daniel Oren. Luca Salsi is a much better actor and a convincing Scarpia.
Joseph Franconi Lee’s production is strangely designed. The set is a huge stairway. The cast trample all over Cavaradossi’s large painting of Mary Magdalene, which is lying on the steps. A major disappointment is the sheer lack of spectacle during the "Te Deum".
On video, the photography is so dark that it is difficult see what is going on, especially in the third act. The firing squad sequence is poorly staged and so, too, is the immediate aftermath when Tosca discovers her lover is really dead and not faking death.
Siri doesn’t leap from the battlements, which avoids any health and safety issues and any unintentional comedy. (One diva, having jumped, unfortunately, bounced back up and appeared over the parapet.) Siri, about to be arrested, just walks slowly and dignifiedly up the stairway and into the darkness. There is no excitement and no horror.
P.S. Bernhardt at one performance jumped and landed so badly, she injured her leg and had to have it amputated in 1915. She strapped on a wooden leg and continued performing in plays where she could sit down for most of the time.
Teatro Regio di Parma’s Tosca can be watched free on the OperaVision channel.