Saturday Afternoon at the Opera proudly presents Puccini’s Tosca, one of the best-loved operas of all time, in a production from the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto. Tosca continues to thrill audiences with its bold story of a deeply religious and passionate woman. And yes, hell hath no fury like a woman caught up in a web of corruption, lust and betrayal.
Set in Rome when the city was a dangerous place to navigate both on foot and in matters of the heart, Tosca premiered in 1900 to mixed reviews. Considered vulgar by some early critics, it’s now regarded as a great classic of Italian opera. It’s also a true test for the leading soprano who, singing the role of a celebrity singer, must deal with dramatic, as well as vocal, challenges.
Soprano Adrianne Pieczonka, the COC’s Tosca, explains her take on the role in this video.
The COC’s presentation is sung in Italian. It’s a co-production with the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet.
The cast:
Floria Tosca: Adrianne Pieczonka
Mario Cavaradossi: Carlo Ventre
Baron Scarpia: Mark Delavan
Sacristan: Peter Strummer
Conductor Paolo Carignani leads the COC Orchestra and Chorus.
Director Paul Curran calls Tosca “pure flesh and blood from the first bars to the end.”
The opera begins inside a church where the painter Cavaradossi is working on a mural. An escaped prisoner, Angelotti, enters and asks for help. The painter agrees to hide him. Tosca, the opera star, enters. She is the painter’s lover and is immediately jealous having seen Cavaradossi's painting of another woman. He tries to reassure her just as Scarpia, the chief of police, arrives seeking his prisoner.
The only thing Scarpia finds, however, is a fan left behind by the woman in Cavaradossi's painting. He taunts Tosca with it. Scarpia wants her to be angry. He wants Tosca to love him instead.
In the next act the police chief has sent Cavaradossi to the torture chamber and has brought Tosca to witness his agony. It works. She tells Scarpia where to find the prisoner, Angelotti.
Cavaradossi is angry. He feels betrayed. But Tosca decides to appeal to the police chief’s desire to save Cavaradossi's life. It appears to work. The chief says he has ordered the painter’s execution but it will be a “fake” shooting using only blanks. Just as the police chief swoops in to claim Tosca as his prize, she grabs his knife and stabs him to death.
Act three depicts Cavaradossi's "staged" execution. Tosca rushes to Cavaradossi's limp body, convinced he will be alive. She is wrong; the bullets were real. Tosca is then pursued for murdering Scapia, but escapes arrest by jumping to her death from the castle's parapet.
Read the full synopsis on the COC’s website.
Related:
Globe and Mail Review
Musical Toronto Reveiw
COC's Further Reading