WATERMARK
Issue 4.23
November 13 - 26, 1997
Page 29
Love and Politics:
Tosca, the Masterful Creation of Puccini, is Updated for Modern Audiences
The word diva was born in opera, and nowhere in opera does it fit better than in Giacomo Puccini's torid masterpiece, Tosca. The opera itself is one of the most beloved dramatic musical works in the world, and is being brought to the Bob Carr Performing Arts Center on November 21, 23, and 25 by the Orlando Opera Company.
The story is simplistic and tragic: Tosca, the beautiful Italian opera diva, first betrays her lover in the hands of the unscrupilous chief of the secret police, then betrays and kills the police chief to save her lover. ALl are ultimately doomed, but the wrenching story leaves no emotional stone unturned, exposing the underlying tragedy of passion, love, jealousy, lust and hate.
It is, actually, a political story; when Puccini wrote the opera in 1898, he based it on a play that had been written for and popularized by Sarah Berndardt, and that mirrored the political tourmoil that was Italy throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. The opera, like the play, was set in Rome in 1800, amidst the upheaval of the Napoleanic wars, but the characters of a diva, a revolutionary, and a secret police chief fit as well in 1800 as in 1900 as in 1940. The opera was first produced in 1900, and has been performed regularly since. Modern day divas have made the role their own, including Kiri Te Kanawa and the late Maria Callas, for whom the opera was her launching board to superstardom.
Stage director Nicolette Molnar, who has received critical acclaim for her updated version of Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte, has chosen to play on the universal theme of tyranny by moving the set from Rome in 1800 to the fascist Italy of 1937. Molnar brings the opera into the modern era in order for the audience to made contact with the story and its characters — the terror of the fascist Mussolini state is well within the living memory of people today, as opposed to the now-distant war torn Europe of 1800. As well, the Orlando Opera uses supertitles to aid audience understanding. At first very controversal in the opera world, suspertitles, which are essentially subtitles in English projected above the set of the Italian being sung on the stage, are considered indispensible for opera companies that want to compete for audiences.
In the highly-coveted role of Tosca, Marquita Lister is making her debut in this role, coming to it with popular and critical acclaim for her lead roles in Cosi Fan Tutte, Porgy and Bess, and particularly Carmen. Lister, who prefers playings roles that portray women of substance and drama, brings her statuesque grace and elegeance to the role of the tempetuous and jealous diva. Tosca is an unusual role, for the character has to exude worldliness and naiveity: wordliness in love and art, naiveity of politics. Lister is joined by Greer Grimsley, baratone, in the role of secret polie chief Baron Scarpia; Michael Rees David, tenor, as Tosca's lover, the painter Mario Cavaradossi; and Jamey Anderson, bass, as the revolutionary Cesare Angelotti.
Puccini wrote Tosca during the height of his fame in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Tosca was written several years after his La Boheme, possibly the most recognized opera of all time, was first produced in 1894, and four years before his reknown Madama Butterfly was first performed in 1904. His popular operas are all tragedies populated with loveable rascals, anti-heroes, and vividly memorable heroines, and continue to please audiences year after year, production after production.
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