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    The Metropolitan Opera Presents: Puccini's Tosca: The Complete Libretto
    The Metropolitan Opera Presents: Puccini's Tosca: The Complete Libretto
    The Metropolitan Opera Presents: Puccini's Tosca: The Complete Libretto
    Ebook181 pages1 hour

    The Metropolitan Opera Presents: Puccini's Tosca: The Complete Libretto

    By Giacomo Puccini and Luigi Illica

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    About this ebook

    An idealistic artist, a celebrated opera singer, and a corrupt police chief engage in a fierce battle of wills in this tempestuous tale of passion, intrigue, cruelty, and deception. Puccini's great melodrama may be set in 1800, amid the Napoleonic wars, but the conflicts between love and loyalty, the state and the individual, and hypocrisy and principle are anything but dated. Floria Tosca, the beautiful, glamorous singer who has all of Rome at her feet, is one of the iconic soprano roles in the Italian repertoire. She's caught between two men: her lover, the handsome painter Cavaradossi, who defies the law to hide a rebel friend; and the villainous Baron Scarpia, Rome's all-powerful chief of police, who will stop at nothing to crush the rebels and conquer Tosca for himself. This gripping story of torture, attempted rape, murder, suicide, and general mayhem is as thrilling and dramatic as anything seen on the operatic stage.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRowmanLittlefield
    Release dateMar 1, 2003
    ISBN9781574674514
    The Metropolitan Opera Presents: Puccini's Tosca: The Complete Libretto

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      Book preview

      The Metropolitan Opera Presents - Giacomo Puccini

      Copyright © 2013 The Metropolitan Opera

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, without written permission, except by a newspaper or magazine reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review.

      Published in 2013 by Amadeus Press

      An Imprint of Hal Leonard Corporation

      7777 West Bluemound Road

      Milwaukee, WI 53213

      Trade Book Division Editorial Offices

      33 Plymouth St., Montclair, NJ 07042

      English translation of libretto copyright © 1994 and 2004 by Leyerle Publications, 28 Stanley Street, Mt. Morris, New York 14510. English translation by Nico Castel. Originally published by Leyerle Publications as part of The Complete Puccini Libretti, in two volumes. These publications, and others in the Leyerle Opera Libretti series, are available directly from Leyerle’s website at www.leyerlepublications.com.

      Printed in the United States of America

      Book design by Mark Lerner

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

      Print ISBN 978-1-57467-443-9

      epub ISBN 978-1-57467-450-7

      www.amadeuspress.com

      Contents

      Introduction by Peter Gelb

      Synopsis

      In Focus by William Berger

      Program Note by David Hamilton

      Thrill Ride by Philipp Brieler

      TOSCA

      Notes

      Photo Insert

      Milka Ternina as Tosca, 1901

      Aimé Dupont / Metropolitan Opera Archives

      Introduction

      With nearly a thousand performances since its 1901 company premiere, Puccini’s Tosca is one of the most-performed works in Metropolitan Opera history, currently ranking fifth on the all-time list (behind just Aida, Carmen, La Traviata, and, in the top spot, the composer’s own La Bohème). The opera’s enduring appeal is not hard to understand. Tosca offers a captivating heroine, gripping melodrama, and some of the most powerful and instantly recognizable arias in opera, from the painter Cavaradossi’s E lucevan le stelle to the villain Scarpia’s Te Deum to the heroine’s indestructible Vissi d’arte. A prime example of verismo opera, Tosca functions as a kind of operatic thriller, a juggernaut that doesn’t let up from the very first chords until the curtain comes down. (In the article Thrill Ride, featured in this guide, Met Music Director James Levine compares Tosca to a Hitchcock film.)

      This first volume of the Metropolitan Opera Presents series aims to give readers a 360-degree view of Puccini’s timeless drama. In addition to the complete libretto, we’ve included a synopsis, a detailed program note with musicological background, and the In Focus feature we offer each night in the Met’s house program—a quick, easy primer intended to provide the essentials for a given opera in a format that audiences can absorb easily in the minutes before the curtain goes up. We’ve also featured a number of archival photographs of Tosca throughout its century-plus history at the Met. Whether you experience Tosca at the Met, through our Live in HD movie theater transmissions, on the radio, or online, we hope this guide gives you all the background you need to appreciate this Puccini masterpiece to the fullest.

      Peter Gelb

      General Manager

      Metropolitan Opera

      To learn more about Met productions, Live in HD movie-theater transmissions, Met membership, and more, visit metopera.org.

      Antonio Scotti as Scarpia, 1901

      Metropolitan Opera Archives

      Synopsis

      Act I

      Rome, June 1800. Cesare Angelotti, an escaped political prisoner, rushes into the church of Sant’Andrea della Valle to hide in one of the chapels. Once he has disappeared, a sacristan enters and then the painter Mario Cavaradossi, who sets to work on his portrait of Mary Magdalene. The painting has been inspired by the Marchesa Attavanti, whom Cavaradossi has seen in the church but does not know. While he works, he compares the dark-haired beauty of his lover, the singer Floria Tosca, to that of the blonde Marchesa Attavanti. Angelotti, a member of the former Bonapartiste government, ventures out and is recognized by his friend Cavaradossi. The painter gives him food and hurries him back into the chapel as Tosca is heard calling from outside. Suspicious, she jealously questions Cavaradossi, then reminds him of their rendezvous that evening at his villa. Suddenly recognizing the Marchesa Attavanti in the painting, she accuses him of being unfaithful, but he assures her of his love. When Tosca has left, Angelotti emerges from the chapel. A cannon signals that the police have discovered the escape, and he and Cavaradossi flee to the painter’s villa. The sacristan enters with choirboys who are preparing to sing in a Te Deum that day celebrating the victory over Napoleon a few days earlier. Their excitement is silenced by the arrival of Baron Scarpia, chief of the secret police, who is searching for Angelotti. When Tosca comes back looking for Cavaradossi, Scarpia shows her a fan with the Attavanti crest that he has just found. Seemingly finding her suspicions about her lover’s infidelity confirmed, Tosca bursts into tears. She vows vengeance and leaves as the church fills with worshipers. Scarpia sends his men to follow her to Cavaradossi, with whom he thinks Angelotti is hiding. While the congregation sings the Te Deum, Scarpia declares that he will bend Tosca to his will.

      Act II

      The same evening in his study at the Palazzo Farnese, Scarpia sadistically anticipates the pleasure of having Tosca in his power. The spy Spoletta arrives, explaining that he was unable to find Angelotti. Instead he brings in Cavaradossi. While Scarpia interrogates the painter, Tosca is heard singing at a royal gala in the same building. Scarpia sends for her and she enters just as Cavaradossi is being taken away to be tortured. Frightened by Scarpia’s questions and Cavaradossi’s screams, Tosca reveals Angelotti’s hiding place. Cavaradossi is carried in, hurt and dazed. Realizing what has happened, he angrily confronts Tosca, when the officer Sciarrone rushes in to announce that, in a surprise, Napoleon has won the Battle of Marengo, a defeat for Scarpia’s side. Cavaradossi shouts out his defiance of tyranny and is dragged off to be executed. Scarpia, calmly resuming his supper, suggests to Tosca that he would let Cavaradossi go free if she’d give herself to him. Fighting off his advances, she calls on God and declares that she has dedicated her life to art and love. Scarpia insists, when Spoletta interrupts: faced with capture, Angelotti has killed himself. Tosca, now forced to give in or lose her lover, agrees to Scarpia’s proposition. The baron seemingly orders a mock execution for Cavaradossi, after which he is to be freed. Spoletta leaves. As soon as Scarpia has

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