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In early 19th-century Rome, an idealistic artist, a celebrated singer and a corrupt police chief engage in a fierce battle of wills in this tempestuous tale of cruelty and deception. With its themes of political intrigue, sexual intimidation and official hypocrisy, Puccini’s great melodrama is anything but dated. Canadian soprano Adrianne Pieczonka, praised by The New York Times for her “lushly beautiful sound and poignant vulnerability,” makes her Company debut in the title role. Baritone Lado Ataneli (Scarpia) has been praised by the Los Angeles Times as possessing “one of the healthiest, roundest, most mellifluous voices on the planet.” Honey-voiced Italian tenor Roberto Aronica makes up the third side of this fatal love triangle.

In early 19th-century Rome, an idealistic artist, a celebrated singer and a corrupt police chief engage in a fierce battle of wills in this tempestuous tale of cruelty and deception. With its themes of political intrigue, sexual intimidation and official hypocrisy, Puccini’s great melodrama is anything but dated. Canadian soprano Adrianne Pieczonka, praised by The New York Times for her “lushly beautiful sound and poignant vulnerability,” makes her Company debut in the title role. Baritone Lado Ataneli (Scarpia) has been praised by the Los Angeles Times as possessing “one of the healthiest, roundest, most mellifluous voices on the planet.” Honey-voiced Italian tenor Roberto Aronica makes up the third side of this fatal love triangle.

ACT I

Cesare Angelotti, a political prisoner who has just escaped from the jail at Castel Sant'Angelo, seeks refuge in the Attavanti chapel of the church of Sant'Andrea della Valle. He hides at the approach of the Sacristan who is soon followed by the painter Mario Cavaradossi. The Sacristan recites the Angelus while Cavaradossi climbs the scaffold and begins to work on his painting, pausing to admit that his portrait of the Mary Magdalene was first inspired not only by an unknown lady who came to pray to the Virgin, but also by his beloved Floria Tosca, a famous Roman opera singer. The scandalized Sacristan leaves. Angelotti comes out of hiding and asks for Cavaradossi's assistance. The painter, thrusting a lunch basket into his hands, urges Angelotti back into the chapel as the voice of Tosca is heard. He hides as Cavaradossi admits Tosca into the church. She demands to know why she was kept waiting, and suspects Cavaradossi of talking to another woman. He reassures her of his love, and the pair agree to meet that evening at Cavaradossi's villa. With Tosca gone, Angelotti reappears and Cavaradossi vows to save him. A cannon shot is heard announcing the escape of a prisoner: Angelotti. Cavaradossi leaves with the pursued man in order to hide him at his villa. The Sacristan returns and gathers choristers around him, telling them they must rehearse for a special performance of a cantata that evening celebrating a defeat of Napoleon; Tosca will be the soloist. At that moment, the Roman chief-of-police, Baron Scarpia, arrives searching for Angelotti. His men find the Attavanti chapel open, but all that remains is a fan with the family crest on it, and the empty lunch basket. The Sacristan expresses amazement, as earlier he had noticed that the painter had not touched his meal. Scarpia puts two and two together and realizes that Cavaradossi had aided Angelotti's escape. Suddenly Tosca returns, and Scarpia uses the fan to convince her that Cavaradossi has fled with another woman, thus awakening jealousy in her. He hopes Tosca will then lead him to Cavaradossi and thus to Angelotti. He orders his spies to follow her as she leaves the church, then joins in the Te Deum, swearing he will capture not only the painter, but Tosca as well.

ACT II

Scarpia is dining alone in his quarters in the Farnese Palace, anticipating the pleasure of bending Tosca to his will. His henchman Spoletta appears and reports that Tosca has led Scarpia's spies to a remote village, and though Angelotti was not to be found, they had arrested Cavaradossi. The painter is brought in as Tosca's voice is heard from the concert in the courtyard below. Tosca, who had been summoned by Scarpia, is shocked to see Cavaradossi who quietly warns her to reveal nothing about Angelotti. Scarpia tries to get the location of Angelotti's hiding place from her, but she insists that she knows nothing. When Cavaradossi, however, is put to torture in the next room, she reveals the secret, asking Scarpia for Cavaradossi's freedom in return. Scarpia has Cavaradossi brought back in. Delirious from torture, Cavaradossi hears Scarpia order his men to the villa, curses Tosca and cries defiance at the tyranny of Scarpia and the foreign oppressors he represents. Word arrives that the earlier report of Napoleon's defeat at Marengo was incorrect. Instead, Napoleon was the victor. Cavaradossi cries out with joy and is dragged from the room to prison. Tosca pleads for her lover's life, and Scarpia offers her an exchange: if she will give herself to him, he will give Cavaradossi back to her. In despair, she pleads for mercy, protesting that she has never done anything to deserve being faced with such a terrible choice, but realizes she must agree to the bargain. Scarpia tells Tosca there must be a mock execution, and circuitously orders Spoletta to make preparations for a real one. He then prepares a safe-conduct pass for Tosca and Cavaradossi and comes to claim his prize. She grabs a knife from the table and stabs him, then takes the pass and flees the room.

Act III

On the terrace of Castel Sant'Angelo, outside the prison, the voice of a shepherd is heard at dawn while one by one the bells of Rome strike the hour. Cavaradossi is brought in for his execution, which is an hour away. He bribes the jailer with a ring for permission to write a farewell letter to Tosca. Left alone, he recalls pleasant memories of her. She suddenly hurries in, explaining that there is to be a mock execution in which he is to pretend to have been shot. She also tells him about Scarpia's murder and of the safe-conduct pass that will get them out of Rome before the murder is discovered. He can hardly believe the news and looks in wonder at the delicate hands that did so much to save him. The lovers ecstatically plan for the future, but are interrupted by the arrival of the soldiers. As the firing squad advances and takes aim, Tosca retires with a final word to Cavaradossi about how to fall realistically. The soldiers fire and Cavaradossi falls. Tosca bids him to wait until they are gone, then asks him to rise and come away with her. She hurries to Cavaradossi and is horrified to discover that he is dead and that the execution was real after all. Distant shouts announce that Scarpia's murder was discovered. As Spoletta, Sciarrone and the soldiers rush in to seize Tosca, she climbs to the fortress parapet and leaps to her death.

La Tosca becomes Tosca

By George R. Marek 

The French poetic drama reached its height with the burning, perfectly shaped, preternatural plays of Racine—Bérénice, Iphigénie, Phèdre—of which he himself wrote that they were “more significant that ordinary life,” that they dealt with life on a plane of high decorum, at all moments fully responsive to the obligations of nobility. These plays had to be heard with sensitive ears and a mind attuned to their music. They were and are untranslatable, and they were not easy entertainment. Far from it! They demanded work and cognition on the part of the audience. But they were worth it. They disclosed the mystery of the suffering. Racine died in 1699.

More than two and a half centuries later, the French theater had descended to “realism.” At the time when the bourgeois industrialist, his stomach filled, his paunch expanding, the troubles with his daughter continuing, his wife restless, his laborers beginning to be recalcitrant, at a time as well when he heard of a new book, Das Kapital, which he refused to read, he wanted evening entertainment that made no demands on his imagination or forensic ability. Of course there were exceptions, but in the main the “well-made play” was the criterion by which theatrical fare was judged. The theater had lost nothing of its popularity—indeed, it was more popular than ever—but it had become domesticized. Certainly, some romantic flights still existed, remnants of Victor Hugo and Alfred de Musset, but largely the well-made play took over. It was as carefully put together as the works of a watch. It had to explain in the exposition cause and effect, and spell out the background. Usually each act built to a climax of a crisis known to the audience but unknown to the characters. This was the “confrontation scene.” Even the scenery had to be realistic, drapes of velvet, chairs covered in fine silk, real wine served on stage, though not necessarily of first quality. Scenes of love or seduction or sexual betrayal were obligatory. At eleven o’clock everything came out right—or wrong—in the “resolution scene,” and everybody rushed for the garderobe and for supper.
 
In a word, these plays “ticked,” with the playwrights doing the work, not the audiences. The audiences didn’t need to think. Where was the poetry? Where was Racine’s verbal music? Forgotten. Even Molière’s wit seemed old-fashioned.
 
The two most successful practitioners of the well-made play were Eugène Scribe and Victorien Sardou. Sardou was sixty years younger then Scribe, who was born in 1791 and was possibly the more talented, but both had long lives, and both furnished composers with no end of serviceable opera projects, Scribe for Meyerbeer, Sardou for Puccini and Giordano. Scribe’s best play was A Glass of Water, which I saw performed when I was young. A typical Sardou play bears the title Let’s Get a Divorce. It deals with a bored young housewife. Her cousin tells her the divorce law is to be liberalized and proposes that he become her lover. Under the new law she would soon become his wife. Her husband encourages the plan, for reasons of his own. In the end everything is straightened out, and the errant wife returns to her husband.
 
A further stroke of luck was the presence of two brilliant actresses, among the greatest who ever lived, diametrically different. Sarah Bernhardt, with her flaming red hair, was the prime example of the “temperamental” actress. Her voice was likened to a carillon, she had many lovers, she stormed and fainted at will, she was supposed to demand that her fee—which was enormous—be paid in gold coins, and to prefer to sleep in a coffin. Eleonora Duse was a recluse, in love with Gabriele D’Annunzio, who wrote embroidered plays for her; slim, conveying emotions with very little movement and eyes filled with inner fire. Bernhardt and Duse appeared in Sardou plays, including Tosca.
 
The reason Sardou is remembered today is a single one: Tosca. Early in his career, after the premiere of his opera Edgar, Puccini wrote to this friend and publisher, Giulio Ricordi:

May 7, 1889
Dearest Signor Giulio:
After two or three days of bucolic idleness, so that I might rest from all the exertions I have undergone, I realize that my desire for work, instead of diminishing, has returned more strongly than ever. I am thinking of La Tosca. I implore you to take all the necessary steps in order to obtain Sardou’s permission. If we had to abandon this idea, it would grieve me exceedingly. In this Tosca I see the opera that exactly suits me, one without excessive proportions, one that is a decorative spectacle, that gives opportunity for an abundance of music.

But after that, Puccini turned to Manon Lescaut and La Bohème, and it wasn’t until six years later that the composer renewed his question. What about La Tosca? In the meantime, Ricordi had turned the proposal over to another of his composers, Alberto Franchetti, and the publisher was faced with a pretty problem: his money-making composer, second in importance only to Verdi, now wanted La Tosca. He wanted it badly, and what Giacomo wanted Giacomo got. Ricordi persuaded Franchetti the play would not make a suitable libretto, using various specious arguments—“too complicated, too political”—arguments he himself did not believe. It was hardly a moral action. Franchetti went home, pondered, came back and said, all right, I give up La Tosca. The next day Puccini grabbed it. The crow let go of the bit of cheese, and the fox snapped it up.
 
Now came the question—would Sardou give his permission? And how much would that cost? Negotiations began at 50,000 francs, an impossible figure. Puccini packed his bag and went to see Sardou, not once but several times. Sardou wanted to hear some of the music Puccini had composed for Tosca. He had as yet composed none, so he played excerpts from Manon Lescaut and La Bohème and pretended they were destined for Tosca. Sardou was satisfied. Then Puccini wrote to Ricordi:

Paris, January 13, 1899
This morning I was at Sardou’s for an hour. He told me he did not like certain details of the finale. He wanted Floria Tosca dead at all costs [on the stage], poor woman! Now that the sun of the executioner Deibler [head executioner of France, who had just died] has set, the Magician [Sardou] wants to be his successor. But I certainly do not agree with him. He admits Tosca is overwhelmed by madness [in the final moment], yet he would like her to swoon and expire like a bird. Then in the revival that Sarah Bernhardt will play in a few days, Sardou has introduced a huge flag, fluttering and flashing from the top of the Castello, which, according to him, will make a wonderful effect. He is so taken up with that flag that he is more interested in it than in the play itself. But I am still holding out for my finale with the cry “Scarpia, before God!” [closing words of the opera] and the jump from the parapet. Speaking of the parapet, Sardou sketched the scenery [a sketch that Puccini kept and treasured], and in this sketch Sardou wants the course of the Tiber to be visible, passing between St. Pete’s and the Castello. I pointed out to him that the flumen flows on the other side, but he, calm as a fish, replied, “That’s of no importance.” A nice fellow, all life and fire, but full of historic-topographical-panoramic inexactitudes.
… On Saturday morning I have to go and see Sardou again—so the Magician has decreed. Perhaps he will insist on killing Spoletta! We shall see.

Puccini did get La Tosca. With his instinct for the theatrical he recognized that, to quote Sardou, “A play that has been given 3,000 times is always right.”
 
Yes, La Tosca is an example of a well-made play. The background is immediately sketched for the audience, the danger indicated, the Sacristan introduced as an untrustworthy fellow (it isn’t Sardou’s fault that he is usually acted as a silly, limping comic), Tosca’s jealousy motivated. The scene with Scarpia is an “I know” scene, the audience knowing where Angelotti is while Scarpia does not; his preparation of the trap is obvious. The second act is largely the “confrontation scene,” heavily spiced with lust and violence, leading to Scarpia’s knifing, the climax of the play. This occurs where a climax is expected, at the second fall of the curtain. The dénouement, Cavaradossi’s execution and Tosca’s suicide, ends the well-made play with all the principals dead. Everything is “resolved.”
 
Effectively though La Tosca served Puccini, it is a manufactured article. Sardou at best was a manufacturer, not a poet. With all its orotund works, it lacks inner passion. It is cold. It lacks true tragedy. The Cherry Orchard, a quiet and superb comedy, contains more tragedy. So does Strindberg’s The Ghost Sonata, a faulty play. Or Ibsen’s The Master Builder, A Doll’s House, The Wild Duck, The Lady from the Sea, Hedda Gabler. All leave something for the audience to work out; all enlist the imagination. In La Tosca everything is spelled out, through adroitly, to be sure. The play can make a tolerable evening, and the opera does make an exciting evening, as all of us know, if the cast contains a Callas and Gobbi, or a Tebaldi and Warren.
 
Though a line has been traced from Scribe and Sardou to Henrik Ibsen, the difference is great. Surface skill does not suffice. Who would really remember the play La Tosca without Puccini’s music? The well-made play is as obsolete as the collapsible opera hat. Sardou and Scribe remain chiefly as listings in a theater encyclopedia.

This article was published by San Francisco Opera in 1987.
 

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