All remaining live performances in the 2019–20 season at The Met have been cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic. This is a recording from 30 April 2018.
A scene from Tosca at The Met Photo: Ken Howard / Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera Season
Sunday 10 May 2020 at 6pm on RNZ Concert
PUCCINI: Tosca
Cast:
Anna Netrebko (Tosca), Yusif Eyvazov (Mario Cavaradossi), Michael Volle (Baron Scarpia), Patrick Carfizzi (Sacristan), Brenton Ryan (Spoletta), Christopher Job (Sciarrone), Christian Zaremba (Cesare Angelotti), Christian Zaremba (Cesare Angelotti), A. Jesse Schopflocher (Shepherd), Metropolitan Opera Chorus & Orchestra conducted by Bertrand de Billy
Anna Netrebko as Tosca at The Met Photo: Ken Howard / Metropolitan Opera
Puccini’s melodrama about a volatile diva, a sadistic police chief, and an idealistic artist has offended and thrilled audiences for more than a century. Critics, for their part, have often had problems with Tosca’s rather grungy subject matter, the directness and intensity of its score, and the crowd-pleasing dramatic opportunities it provides for its lead roles. But these same aspects have made Tosca one of a handful of iconic works that seem to represent opera in the public imagination. Tosca’s popularity is further secured by a superb and exhilarating dramatic sweep, a driving score of abundant melody and theatrical shrewdness, and a career-defining title role.
Giacomo Puccini Photo: A Dupont, United States Library of Congress, Public Domain
Giacomo Puccini (1858–1924) was immensely popular in his own lifetime, and his mature works remain staples in the repertory of most of the world’s opera companies. His operas are celebrated for their mastery of detail, sensitivity to everyday subjects, copious melody, and economy of expression. Puccini’s librettists for 'Tosc'a, Giuseppe Giacosa (1847–1906) and Luigi Illica (1857–1919), also collaborated with him on his two other most enduringly successful operas, 'La Bohème' and 'Madama Butterfly'. Giacosa, a dramatist, was responsible for the stories, and Illica, a poet, worked primarily on the words themselves.
A scene from Tosca at The Met Photo: Ken Howard / Metropolitan Opera
No opera is more tied to its setting than 'Tosca', which takes place in Rome on the morning of June 17, 1800, through dawn the following day. The specified settings for each of the three acts—the Church of Sant’Andrea della Valle, Palazzo Farnese, and Castel Sant’Angelo—are familiar monuments in the city and can still be visited today. While the libretto takes some liberties with the facts, historical issues form a basis for the opera: The people of Rome are awaiting news of the Battle of Marengo in northern Italy, which will decide the fate of their symbolically powerful city.
A scene from Tosca at The Met Photo: Ken Howard / Metropolitan Opera
The score of 'Tosca' (if not the drama) itself is considered a prime example of the style of verismo, an elusive term usually translated as 'realism'. The typical musical features of the verismo tradition are prominent in 'Tosca': short arias with an uninhibited flood of raw melody, ambient sounds that blur the distinctions between life and art, and the use of parlato—words spoken instead of sung—at moments of tension.
