Jealousy, doubt, sexual extortion, and abuse of political power seem to be universal aspects of both our humanity and our civilization, whether we like it or not. Those qualities and actions are at the heart of verismo opera, of which Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca is a prime example.
Premiering in Rome, at the Teatro Costanzi, in 1900, Tosca both confused and delighted audiences. It also disappointed critics, who wrote things like “Tosca, like all other operas of its type, will be an obscure and uncertain memory of a time of confusion,” and “Tosca is too artificial, and when the composer wishes to be most intense, there is little save irritating noise.” Of course, Tosca has become anything but obscure, and time has shown the definition of “irritating noise” is not an absolute one. Admittedly, turn-of-the-century music was taking many directions, some radical and some traditional. Puccini, somewhere in the middle of that range, was merely matching the musical textures to the dramatic intensity of the story.
Puccini and his librettists, Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica, based their work on a recently produced play by Victorien Sardou, set in 1800, during the Napoleonic Wars. Playwright and critic George Bernard Shaw had nothing good to say about Sardou’s La Tosca, calling it an “empty-headed ghost of a shocker,” but later suggested—sarcastically—that it might make a fine opera.
As a realist drama, the time and place of Tosca is very specific: Rome, June of 1800. Napoleon’s army has just met the Austrian army at Marengo, a fact that is background for the political hostility. Floria Tosca is a beautiful—and jealous—opera singer loved by the painter Cavaradossi, who has agreed to hide his friend and escaped revolutionary ally, Cesare Angelotti, from the police. Tosca, Cavaradossi, and Angelotti all fear the Roman police captain, Baron Scarpia, who is searching for “enemies of the state” and who lusts for Tosca.
Puccini, just as he had done before in La Bohème and would do afterward in Madama Butterfly, created short motifs or themes to identify characters and ideas. The composer’s most famous motive comes right at the Act I curtain—a series of three ominous-sounding chords played fortissimo by the orchestra that will subsequently announce the entrances of the villain Scarpia. The composer’s success with the technique comes from his ability to seamlessly weave theme and melody so that the construction is transparent to the storytelling of singers and orchestra.
New to Knoxville Opera and singing the title role of Tosca will be soprano Kerri Marcinko. No stranger to Knoxville audiences, however, is Scott Bearden, singing the role of the evil Scarpia. Bearden was most recently seen and heard in KO’s Hansel and Gretel in February, and previously as Iago in Otello, Tonio in Pagliacci, and Jack Rance in La fanciulla del West.
The role of Mario Cavaradossi, Tosca’s lover, will be sung by tenor Jonathan Burton, who thrilled Knoxville audiences last year as Manrico in Il Trovatore.
Bass Peter Johnson, a veteran of many KO productions, will sing the role of Cesare Angelotti. Ian McEuen is singing the role of Spoletta, Scarpia’s henchman. Geoffrey Hoos will be seen in three roles, that of the sacristan, the policeman Sciarrone, and the jailer.
This unique multi-venue production of Tosca has been conceived and designed by KO’s executive director, Brian Salesky, who will conduct the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra.
Knoxville Opera presents a three-part production of Puccini’s Tosca, in three different venues, on Saturday, April 30: Church Street United Methodist Church at 2 p.m. and 3:45 p.m. (Act I); the Knoxville Convention and Exhibition Center at 7:30 p.m. (Act II); and the Tennessee Amphitheatre at World’s Fair Park at 9:20 p.m. (Act III). Tickets are $29-$109. Visit knoxvilleopera.com.
Alan Sherrod has been writing about Knoxville’s vibrant classical music scene since 2007. In 2010, he won a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts—the Arts Journalism Institute in Classical Music and Opera—under the auspices of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He also operates his own blogs, Classical Journal and Arts Knoxville.
Share this Post