It was the first opera I ever saw. I was impressed, and fond of it. I don't know a lot about opera, but surely the story of how she kills the villain but is tragically tricked is very powerful. And I 'recognised' some of the music, so it must have a certain appeal.

It will be interesting to read what the opera-experts say.

 

My favorite Tosca clips:

Even with the bad acting, the orchestra is epic!

 

http://www.heise.de/tp/artikel/1/1153/1.html
Tosca is an albanian tribe...Maybe unrelated but Albania and Italy are very close and with many ties...

 

If not, what's great about it?

The music.

Point A: Kerman was critic and musicologist. I don't see why would anybody discuss opinion by person of such low condition.

Point B: I have noticed that most of people who criticise this and other operas tend to be more into non-operatic classical music, mainly Austro-German: they praise Wagner, but know little about Italian music, they fail to connect with anything else that German tradition and aesthetic. For many, Tosca is cheap because heroine's death isn't representation of some pretentious, philosophical concept in the spirit of Wagner that can leave pseudo-intellectuals speechless with awe or because Cavaradossi is simply idealised type of passionate artist who doesn't talk about Schopenhauer for half of hour before dying after being shot.

 

I have noticed that most of people who criticise this and other operas tend to be more into non-operatic classical music, mainly Austro-German: they praise Wagner, but know little about Italian music, they fail to connect with anything else that German tradition and aesthetic.

Okay, take me as a counter-example for your non-musicological (you'd never associate with such low characters) survey, then. I consider Debussy's Pelleas et Mellisande and Ravel's L'enfant et les sortileges among the best operas of that era (I enjoy them more than Strauss), although I do love and enjoy Wagner as well as Mozart and Berg.

For many, Tosca is cheap because heroine's death isn't representation of some pretentious, philosophical concept in the spirit of Wagner that can leave pseudo-intellectuals speechless with awe or because Cavaradossi is simply idealised type of passionate artist who doesn't talk about Schopenhauer for half of hour before dying after being shot.

You're sure that it's not because the whole thing is melodramatic and overwrought?

 

I'm one of those numerous souls in the camp that any and all of Puccini is a "You Know What."

The numbers in the opposite camp are also numerous.

Take your pick, or mix and match, as per your personal taste.

 

Wagner is not melodramatic at all! to be fair, look in the Why do you love Wagner thread and you'll see people going on and on about the intellectual merits of the libretti even more than about the music itself...

 

Yes, I always laugh when I hear someone criticize a particular opera/composer/performance as "unsubtle". It's opera! Not that there can't be subtlety, but it's not the primary goal of an art form that is based on people singing much higher and louder than you'd ever expect from a living thing, while pretending to gods/kings/murderers, sometimes all three at the same time, all accompanied by an orchestra and massive sets. It's not a subtle art form.

 

You're sure that it's not because the whole thing is melodramatic and overwrought?

I don't think there is anything wrong with good melodrama - you might dislike it, but claiming that this is quality that ultimately deems the work as bad is too much. I also don't feel that melodrama in Tosca is of the worst, ridiculous kind. The dramatic situation which, I remember, you tried to riducle in the other thread some time ago is actually pretty good - a trapped woman is being pushed to the limits of her endurance, you get a boiling mixture of her pride and temperament conflicting with the other part of her nature, expressed by Cavaradossi in last act. It's not "let's make some lady stabbing a horny guy to death, that will be so cool!", you get well sketched (for operatic possibilities) character in strong stage situation and, what's most important, Puccini's music depicts all of it with enough insight and sense of truely dramatic artist to throw away the accusations of empty claptrap - for me at least, it's much more human and possible to connect with than dillemas of many Wagnerian characters. So when somebody is ranting despite of that, I can't help but to think he is biased in the way that I have described in previous post.

I'm fine with just not listening to it, but I don't take kindly to the suggestion that my taste is simply a result of being a pseudo-intellectual.

Similiarly, I don't take kindly to the suggestion that when I enjoy Tosca, I'm getting fooled by bunch of cheap effects and insincere music put together by composer-manipulator.

 

I don't take kindly to the suggestion that when I enjoy Tosca, I'm getting fooled by bunch of cheap effects and insincere music put together by composer-manipulator.

Indeed.

Puccini brings insight into the drama. What more can you ask for in opera?

 

I am no opera expert, but maybe this explains why I like Puccini's operas over all else. They reach my heart and emotions, and only Puccini can bring tears. I just saw Tosca two weeks ago. I loved it. But I've never seen a Wagner opera, they don't perform Wagner here in Vancouver. I can't make a critical review of Tosca. All I can say is that I think it's a terrific opera.

 

People vote with their feet or pay to see what they enjoy. Put Tosca on in most parts of the world and the theatre will be full. Let the critics and general pretentious know- it- alls say what they like. The opera going public has declared it one of the greats. I concur.

 

The public are also very keen on Mcdonalds,does that make it a chain of great restaurants ?

 

Of course, just because Kerman is 'wrong' about Tosca, doesn't mean all musicologists and critics are "person of low condition"!

 

Tosca is fantastic heart-on-sleeve stuff and I love it - it doesn't let up the whole way through, great tunes, exciting orchestration, high notes for the principals to fermata on. In fact, it was the opera that dragged me kicking and screaming into the genre as a callow teenager after playing the big arias and the end of Act 1 in an Italian opera gala concert (the rest was Verdi selections which failed to impress me then and nothing has changed). I've even seen it live so I know it has a story but who cares with all that unctuous music!

And this is even coming from one of those awful people who pretends to like atonal music to impress people on the internet ;-)

 

It might be pedantic to observe that Aramis' complaint is not spot on (if it is to be taken as serious criticism) since those to whom he refers who prefer Austro-German music, possibly Wagner, would not criticise Tosca for not being pseudo-intellectual and they would not claim that, by contrast, the deaths of heroes and heroines in Wagner represent pretentious philosophical views.

 

I find Tosca a little difficult to get, and not all that moving. It just seems to present a cruel world where good people endure horrible suffering for no reason, and yet we are supposed to relate to these beautiful characters and pity them? At least with a good tragedy you get the hero's fatal flaws contributing to his or her own destruction, which provokes so much pathos as to really move you. However in this particular opera it would take a really charismatic Tosca to make me feel anything other than 'oh how horrible, that poor woman was driven to suicide because she lives in a really bleak world and that scarpia is an evil piece of work'.

 

Picking this back up: that kind of story is very typical of the literary period in which Puccini was operating; think Emile Zola and Theodore Dreiser. "Literary naturalism," as the genre was called.

I listen to opera for the music anyways; I could care less about all the other trappings, though like Carnaval in Rio it's always a great opportunity to dress up and look dramatic.

 

Unless Kernan included operas with such plots as Lucia di Lamermoor, Pagliacci, Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, Cavalleria Rusticana, even Norma with its bonfire in a very long operatic roster of shabby little shockers, then his singling out of Tosca would be invalid, based on his selective enforcement of an aesthetical principle.

 

Personally, the presence of too much or too little melodrama doesn't compensate for the boredom I have to endure when Tosca is playing. The opera has one half-interesting role and they kill him in the second act. I'm certain he's the bad guy because Puccini rams that menacing motif down my throat every time the guy looks a bit shifty.

By the time the third act kicks in, I'm praying for Napoleon's army to storm the stage and kill our two so-called heroes. Or a bear. I'd settle for a bear.

The problem for me is that Miss Tosca's jealous antics make her too unlikable. The dude is a painter - there's going to be a lot of naked chicks in his life. Is she going to moan about everything he paints?
As for Super Mario, we don't really get to know him. He clearly has a fatal attraction for crazy women but what else do we know about him? He's almost absent in Act Two aside from the occasional scream.

The story should have focused on Marchesa Attavanti. That painting made her look like a bit of a hottie.

 

As for Super Mario, we don't really get to know him. He clearly has a fatal attraction for crazy women but what else do we know about him?

- He should leave saints and make fun with soldiers
- He's ardent republican
- He disdains the pain
- He has innate acting skills

 

I think Tosca is highly effective drama. I'd hesitate to call it melodrama (though I can sort of see why some people call it that) because, if I remember correctly from my college years, melodrama is when the emotional reactions of the characters are not warranted by the dramatic situation. I don't feel Tosca fits this definition.

I'd say my favorite thing about Tosca is the "pictorial" quality of the music, the way it mirrors certain physical actions. I also love the orchestration of "Va, Tosca" and think Mario Cavarodossi a strong character. Too often he's played as a sort of "pretty boy," which in my opinion is no way to play a character of such obvious courage.

 

I'd say my favorite thing about Tosca is the "pictorial" quality of the music, the way it mirrors certain physical actions. I also love the orchestration of "Va, Tosca" and think Mario Cavarodossi a strong character. Too often he's played as a sort of "pretty boy," which in my opinion is no way to play a character of such obvious courage.

How's that for a pretty boy?

 

I love Tosca. It has the Holy Trinity of Italian opera sub-plots - love, politics, and the church. The music has plenty of "Recondita Armonia" in it, along with some wonderfully lush orchestration that ventures into Wagnerian territory when it foreshadows and recalls situations. And how is the plot shabbier than, in increasing order of nastiness, Wozzeck, Lady Macbeth of Mzensk, Bluebeard's Castle or Lulu? It's an opera, not The Art of the Fugue for God's sake.

Tosca is a shabby little shocker to the same extent that the second movement of Brahms' Piano Concerto #2 is "a little wisp of a scherzo".

 

I love Tosca. It has the Holy Trinity of Italian opera sub-plots - love, politics, and the church. The music has plenty of "Recondita Armonia" in it, along with some wonderfully lush orchestration that ventures into Wagnerian territory when it foreshadows and recalls situations. And how is the plot shabbier than, in increasing order of nastiness, Wozzeck, Lady Macbeth of Mzensk, Bluebeard's Castle or Lulu?

The problem is not that the plot is lurid. That would touch upon many operas (not sure I'd include Bluebeard here, though), old and new.

It's an opera, not The Art of the Fugue for God's sake.

Oh, and what do you think we who dislike it were looking for? I'm not sure what Art of Fugue has to do with anything, but if you're attempting to use it as a symbol of dry intellectualism, I couldn't disagree more.

I don't understand who you're arguing with, but it doesn't seem like it's any of the people who have commented on this thread, nor is it Kerman himself.

 

I dislike it because to me it evokes absolutely nothing at all, and yet I hear that I am supposed to feel this and that way.

Feeling that you're "supposed" to feel something is pretty common when you don't connect music written in such emotional idiom. I feel that way about Bruckner - I often read the emotion intended, but it's not evoked in me. Yet I don't accuse Bruckner of things that people are trying to bring against Puccini, since I know many experienced listeners find his music rewarding and obviously there must be something in it.

Anyway, I hope you will get to appreciate Tosca. A good thing to do would be exploring more recordings - in opera, the performers shape the character of the work to much greater extent than in other classical music and you might feel entirely different way listening to a different performance.

 

Feeling that you're "supposed" to feel something is pretty common when you don't connect music written in such emotional idiom. I feel that way about Bruckner - I often read the emotion intended, but it's not evoked in me. Yet I don't accuse Bruckner of things that people are trying to bring against Puccini, since I know many experienced listeners find his music rewarding and obviously there must be something in it.

I don't consider Bruckner's music particularly "emotional". It strikes me as external rather than an expression of internal feelings. Its beauties for me are musical and formal, and even when that produces emotion in me (as it can), it's not because the composer is depicting some feeling or other. He may use the language of Wagner's Tristan, but the longing expressed in the final two adagios, say, does not express any sort of particular emotion, except that in the music itself.

The point, however, is that I don't hear, in Mahler and Bruckner, that I am being told what to feel. I am presented with music, and I may feel what I will (that there are different interpretations of nearly every moment in Mahler's supposedly "openly confessional" music is, I feel, a sign of its inner emotional richness).

Anyway, I hope you will get to appreciate Tosca. A good thing to do would be exploring more recordings - in opera, the performers shape the character of the work to much greater extent than in other classical music and you might feel entirely different way listening to a different performance.

Perhaps. Who knows. Tastes change over time.

 

"Shabby little shocker" may be a catchy phrase, but it's just plain DUMB . Tosca is neither shabby, little nor a shocker .
It may not be profound music, but it's superbly crafted , melodious , gorgeously orchestated and from dramatic viewpoint ,
effective as hell .
It happens to be the opera I've played the most as a horn player , and you can't help but be impressed with
Puccini's skill at writing operas after getting to know it so well over the years .

 

"Shabby little shocker" may be a catchy phrase, but it's just plain DUMB . Tosca is neither shabby, little nor a shocker .

Ironically, with that pejorative phrase, Kerman achieved exactly what he was accusing Puccini of: it sounds good, it's popular, but it has no substance and no merit whatsoever.

 

I think Tosca is the perfect end for the Italian Ottocento. A powerful drama, well served by the music, but especially by the singing voice. This is the essence of the Italian opera. Of course, a lot of things have happened between Rossini or Bellini, and Puccini: the progressive retirement of the 'solita forma', the great dramatic impulse of Verdi, the influence of German opera and the greater importance of the orchestra... but the core, the basic truth of presenting the "dramma per musica" singing, is still there, and masterfully presented by Puccini.

Of course, it's perfectly normal not to like Tosca. But to ignore or disregard his great appeal as an operatic drama, is simply pointless. Sometimes, to understand well the drama in a Baroque opera, or even in Italian belcanto period, one to learn the 'codes', and then fully enjoy the piece. But this is not the case in Tosca. Not for everybody's taste (nothing is really for everybody's taste, anyway), but great theater and beautiful music.

This is Magda Olivero singing "Vissi d'arte" in her debut at the MET as Tosca, at 65 years old. This is what Italian 19th century (and early 20th century) opera is all about, really:

 

I think Tosca is the perfect end for the Italian Ottocento. A powerful drama, well served by the music, but especially by the singing voice. This is the essence of the Italian opera. Of course, a lot of things have happened between Rossini or Bellini, and Puccini: the progressive retirement of the 'solita forma', the great dramatic impulse of Verdi, the influence of German opera and the greater importance of the orchestra... but the core, the basic truth of presenting the "dramma per musica" singing, is still there, and masterfully presented by Puccini.

I agree.

Trio Puccini/Illica/Giacosa had a wonderful theatrical sense, and Tosca is probably their crowning achievement in that way.
Something that lacked for the most part to the other major italian composer of the period.

In the context of the day, "Verismo" -- exemplified by, a.o. Puccini, actually, yes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verismo_%28music%29

All I can say, and it is somewhat true, "things were different back then"

Verismo, as a music genre definition, is a flawed term IMO.
Used as a term to specify a time period in the italian Opera is more fitting (but I always preferred the name Giovane Scuola).

I'd go as far as to say Cavalleria Rusticana wasn't really born as a verismo opera, just was the one which started the phenomenon.
I regard Mascagni as a talented composer whom always tried to fill the source libretto with his passion but somewhat lacking in term of vision.
He just adapted his music to the libretto he had at hand.

That's why I think Cavalleria is a product of coincidence more than a pondered concept.
In fact there is very little verismo in it.
Mascagni's Sicily is totally faked, as for example there is very little Japan in his Opera Iris.
However because of what the source material was and because of Mascagni talent the final work resulted in a more fast paced and thrilling piece which in a sense revolutionazed what was the italian Opera landscape at the time.
After witnessing Cavalleria success, many italian composers raced to blatantly copycat the "winning formula" (those consciously tried to adhere to "verismo").
In Pagliacci, the sly Leoncavallo, even inserted a supposedly programmatic manifest in the prologue.
However there wasn't really any "winning formula" to copy from, it was just a combination of lucky factors (good music by Mascagni was one) and thus very few imitators achieved (durable) success and soon then phenomenon died out.

And this is even coming from one of those awful people who pretends to like atonal music to impress people on the internet ;-)

I'm impressed

 

I think the term of verismo is alright as long as you don't try to make far-fetched generalization, such as that somebody was a "veristic" composer, because most of them indeed wrote operas that don't come along with the ideas of verismo at all. Jonas Kaufmann and many other singers have heavily abused the term when they named their recital discs "verismo arias" and filled them with pieces that have nothing to do with verismo at all, barely being late XIXth century Italian arias.

 

Years ago I read an article in "Opera News" about TOSCA that made an impression on me. It explained how the main theme of TOSCA is something like "acting versus real life." In other words, the story shows how much of life can be a performance and how much of life is inescapably "real." Floria Tosca is an opera singer who tends to play every situation in life for high drama, but she learns during the course of the opera how cruel and sordid the real world can be. And if you think about it, so much of the opera is about "acting" and pretending to be what one isn't: there's Tosca pretending to Scarpia in Act II about how much she really knows, there's Scarpia hiding his true intentions and pretending to be suave and disinterested, there's the Mass in Act I with its pageantry, there's Tosca in a sense dramatizing the murder of Scarpia by putting the candles around him and the Crucifix on his chest -- and at the end there's the staged execution that turns out to be real. So I think you can view TOSCA as being about melodrama rather than being a melodrama. In other words, melodrama is perhaps more its theme than its genre.

 

not being an opera buff, I have seen recently that Shabby Little Shocker in Turkey (sic). And I tell you, whatever you may think of a rather melodramatic libretto, music and arias stays in your mind....
it is something,
and this is the reason why people keep listening with pleasure

 

I absolutely adore Tosca! It is shocking of course but it is not at all shabby. I think that the controversy has to do with the fact that Puccini keeps reminding to his viewers that the melodramatic excesses aside this is something very realistic (as John Bell who recently directed Tosca at Sidney put it 'it is probably happening now somewhere in the world') and it could easily happen to them as well. And Puccini told this simple, timeless story in a way that is crude, coarse, unpolished, unbearable at times and in some passages difficult to watch. Despite the popular, catchy tunes and the often unconvincing subplots it is a piece made with the clear intention to make you angry and a bit disgusted at what human beings are able to do to each other. For me Tosca works better when it is set on the second half of the 20th century (a fascist or a nazi context works really well) or even in contemporary or imaginary totalitarian regimes. In Tosca we see an affluent bourgeois couple suffering horrific abuse by the state with the simplest expression of dissent. Mario is not a revolutionary but just a sympathizer, quite privileged but nothing more than the average person who is simply trying to do the right thing, the most revolutionary thing he does is reading Voltaire during the breaks of his well paid job. Both him and Floria (an innocent victim who can only be blamed for blinding ignorance of the reality) work for the system that crushes them down. We know that when they scream during act 2 their former employees are having a ball next door. Even the bad guy is just a corrupted cop who believes that torture and rape are part of his job. Scarpia is so terrifying because we are somehow familiar with people like him - we know that he exists somewhere. Puccini is forcing the viewers in the role of the witness who is watching something that he shouldn't and he is telling us that very easily we can lose everything, that we are never safe and (a bit bitterly) that protest is useless. After the curtain falls we have the feeling that those atrocities will be repeated to someone else on a different place during different times. The only light comes from the suggestion that everyday happiness with your loved ones is the only important thing in life. All these make Tosca very disturbing but definitely not shabby unless we consider lack of pretension as shabbiness.

Maybe it is a bit cultural - I could easily imagine Tosca set in my country where human right abuses are daily routine and it would be altogether convincing and still chilling to the bone. Musically I think it is a masterpiece as well.

 

Dominique: I agree with pretty much everything you said except the part about TOSCA working better when it's set in a more modern, fascist regime. I'm no one to argue with your personal tastes, but for me TOSCA works just fine set in 1800. My preference for the original setting probably has something to do with my love for the fashions of that era ("Empire" or "Regency" style), yet I really can't see much point in updating the opera. Remember that Napoleon is mentioned in the libretto, so it's not a non-specific libretto like FIDELIO's is.