SYNOPSIS OF TOSCA

THE STORY

ACT I.

Cesare Angelotti, an escaped political prisoner, runs into the church of Sant’Andrea della Valle to hide in the family chapel. The Sacristan enters to pray, interrupted by the painter Mario Cavaradossi, who has come to work on his portrait of Mary Magdalene — inspired by the Marchesa Attavanti, Angelotti’s sister. Mario contrasts the beauty of the blond marchesa with that of his lover, the raven-haired singer Floria Tosca (“Recondita armonia”). Angelotti ventures out and is recognized by Mario, who gives him food and hurries him back into the chapel as Tosca is heard outside. She jealously questions Mario, then prays and reminds him of their rendezvous that evening (“Non la sospiri la nostra casetta?”). When she recognizes the marchesa’s likeness in the painting, her suspicions are renewed, but he reassures her (“Qual’occhio al mondo”). When she has left, Mario summons Angelotti as a cannon signals that the police have discovered the escape; the two flee to Mario’s villa. The Sacristan returns with choirboys who are about to sing a Te Deum. Their excitement is silenced by the entrance of Baron Scarpia, chief of the secret police, in search of Angelotti. When Tosca returns looking for Mario, Scarpia shows her the Attavanti crest on a fan he has found. Thinking Mario faithless, Tosca tearfully vows vengeance and leaves as the church resounds with the Te Deum. Scarpia has the diva trailed, scheming to get her in his power (“Va, Tosca!”).

ACT II.

In the Farnese Palace, Scarpia anticipates the pleasure of bending Tosca to his will (“Ha più forte sapore”). The spy Spoletta arrives; having failed to find Angelotti, he placates the baron by bringing in Mario, who is interrogated while Tosca is heard singing at a royal gala downstairs. She enters as her lover is dragged away to be tortured. Unnerved by Mario’s screams, she reveals Angelotti’s hiding place. Mario is carried in; realizing what has happened, he rages at Tosca. When the gendarme Sciarrone rushes in to announce that Napoleon has won the Battle of Marengo, a defeat for Scarpia’s side, Mario shouts his defiance (“Vittoria!”) and is dragged to prison. Scarpia suggests Tosca yield to him in exchange for her lover’s life. Fighting him off, she protests her fate to God, having dedicated her life to art and love (“Vissi d'arte”). Spoletta interrupts: faced with capture, Angelotti has killed himself. Tosca accepts Scarpia’s proposition. The baron pretends to order a mock execution, and Spoletta leaves. Scarpia prepares a document of safe-conduct for the lovers. When he embraces her, Tosca stabs him with a knife from the table, wrenches the document from his hand and, placing a crucifix on his chest, slips out.

ACT III.

A Shepherd is heard singing as church bells toll the dawn. Mario is led to the roof of Castel Sant’Angelo to await execution; he bribes the jailer to convey a farewell note to Tosca. Writing it, overcome with memories of love, he gives way to despair (“E lucevan le stelle”). Suddenly Tosca runs in with the story of her recent adventure. Mario caresses the hands that committed murder for his sake (“O dolci mani”), and the two hail the future. As the firing squad appears, the diva coaches her lover on how to fake his death convincingly; the soldiers fire and depart. Tosca urges Mario to hurry, but when he fails to move, she discovers Scarpia’s treachery: the bullets were real. Spoletta rushes in to arrest Tosca. She climbs the battlements and, crying that she will meet Scarpia before God, leaps to her death.

THE BACKGROUND

Giacomo Puccini, the only Italian composer after Verdi to achieve lasting success with opera after opera, was born into a musical family in Lucca, near Florence. It was mainly at his mother’s urging that he studied music as a young man. When he heard Aida — then still a novelty — he recognized the lyric theater as his calling and got a scholarship to study in Milan.
After the lyricism of Le Villi and La Bohème and the romance of Edgar and Manon Lescaut, Puccini felt ready for a full-blooded melodrama. In Tosca he succeeded so vividly that the score remains a prototype of its kind. As with Manon and Bohème, Puccini lighted on a text already chosen by a rival composer, in this case Alberto Franchetti.

Puccini had to face a temperamental playwright, Victorien Sardou, 65-year-old dean of the French theater and author of La Tosca. Sardou not only exacted an exorbitant fee but inundated Puccini with unsolicited advice. The composer had even more trouble with his librettists, Illica and Giacosa; the former had written on the lengthy side and refused to cut, while the latter found the melodrama lacking in poetry. Puccini had his way, eliminating two of Sardou’s five acts.

A restless atmosphere preceded Tosca’s world premiere in Rome on January 14, 1900. The public was skeptical of a local subject set by an out-of-towner. Despite a bomb scare and a near-riot instigated by disgruntled latecomers trying to get seated, Tosca was performed — by Romanian diva Hariclea Darclée, tenor Emilio de Marchi and baritone Eugenio Giraldoni, with Leopoldo Mugnone conducting. The reception was mixed, but the opera soon established itself. The American premiere at the Met (Feb. 4, 1901) starred Milka Ternina, Giuseppe Cremonini and Antonio Scotti, Luigi Mancinelli on the podium.

Gustav Mahler is said to have remarked about Tosca, “Nowadays every idiot orchestrates to perfection,” while Richard Strauss was quoted as saying, “La Bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, I can't tell them apart.” Actually, La Bohème is marked by youthful lyricism, Butterfly by sadness and poignancy, Tosca by tension and violence.

© Copyright OPERA NEWS 2007. Reprinted with permission.