Notoriously popular but also one of the great challenges to successfully perform,"Tosca" is an intimate, bluntly melodramatic opera, that Puccini elevates to the proportions of Greek tragedy. It requires of the three leads extreme vocal and acting talent, where if lacking, the whole thing becomes trite and can come across as more than a little facile. So why would a major composer even consider putting pen to page to bring this (even for it's time) an outdated star vehicle to opera? The source material was a play written to showcase Sarah Bernhardt. But a successful production reveals what Puccini saw in the material: the consequences of jealousy, the power of corrupt politics and how it leads to rebellion, how singular love and lust can both illuminate and destroy, and what the abandonment of faith for, in this case, obsession can lead. There is murder, suicide, torture, jealousy, loyalty to friend and lover, devotion, and blasphemy. These are all themes worthy of a playwright/composer and his audience to consider and Puccini's mastery of consolidating all of this with such efficiency is why it is one of the masterworks of the operatic canon.
While it's only a plot with 3 characters: two lovers and a villain who is focused on his erotic obsession with one of the lovers and a political enemy of the other. The opera holds one of the penultimate accomplishments in opera. The first act is basically the set-up for what happens in the next two. We're introduced to all the characters who already have a long history with one another, and Puccini masterfully fills us in on all of that with some of his most soaring music. But the majority of the first act is spare of anything we call "grand" opera. It's set is an empty cathedral, the characters are revealed through solo and duet, but it ends what becomes one of the most elaborate, and perhaps my favorite scene in all of opera.
In the final minutes of Act I. Puccini pulls out all the stops available to a composer, both with the orchestra and setting. The stage fills with all the spectacle the Catholic church provides. Every instrument available to orchestration is thrown in: a large chorus, a large organ, bells of all sorts while canons explode in the background. The "Te Deum" is set in counterpoint to villain's machinations ending in a breath-taking sacrilege initiated by a lie he's told to foment he destruction of the lovers so he can move in and satisfy his carnal desire ending with replacing God with his object of lust and hopefully executing his political rival. It's an unparalleled moment on the stage.
So, in this production, it's rather bold to throw all of that out the window, at least visually, and focus solely on the face of the villain in ever tightening close-up while the orchestra and chorus (and canon) boom in the background. Perhaps this is justifiable by focusing solely on the character's singular motive which has disastrous consequence for all three principals, but you wonder with having the luxury of using all the space available to filmmakers, when--on the stage--designers and directors are so limited in presenting this epic moment. It's powerful, but I wish Benoît Jacquot had gone with the more obvious choice. He didn't, but the rest of the production has such strength provided by the talents of the performers, orchestra and art direction, it's perhaps unfair to hang too much on this one, what I consider, mistake.
It's particularly strange because he succeeds with a gorgeous moment in the beginning of Act III. Where a shepherd's solo is filmed from an arial wide shot, in the darkness before dawn set in the fields outside the walls of Rome, illuminated by a single lantern as the shepherds and his flock wanders in the dark. It's a wonderful, imaginative moment, but why "open this up" to such vast space, and eliminate the spectacle of the "Te Deum"? Just to be contrary isn't really a good answer.
On the stage, we're given a lot of internal thoughts sung at full throat in front of the other characters. And that's always an awkward convention that seems more and more at odds with modern realism. Jacquot visually let's those internal thoughts stay in the character's heads by overdubbing. As well, his use of spoken dialogue to emphasize key moments which preface them being sung, rankles purists, but I thought it worked. Some of the visual conventions are already dated, using over or undersaturated and processed film to "open" up the visuals (for instance, showing a full moon when it's being sung about, or a cottage and garden with a water well, that we don't ever see on the stage). Even if the photography for those moments weren't so dated graphically--there's a long sequence where scenes we've seen are run in reverse meant to emphasize how inevitable the tragic consequences of various choices made by the characters led to what's coming and seals their fate--is unnecessary. It's not a long opera or even a film, so we don't need a redundant "rewind" of what we've just seen.
What is marvelous is the use of real locations, where only necessary elements of architecture aren't draped/masked in black, silhouetting the characters, and reducing the unnecessary detail that results from putting a stage play and shooting them in the real places. I thought that was a brilliant and inventive, and the best solution for moving action in a stage setting to a real location.
I can't fault any of the singing or acting, which is really what propels this piece out melodrama. The orchestra too is marvelous. The costuming elaborate and at the same time works in these real settings. In fact, the costume Tosca wears in the Acts II & III should be the model for any future production.
Is this the perfect "Tosca" on film? Well, for now, I think it is. But we need a definitive one where the Director doesn't give into excess (where this material begs for restraint). And perhaps the real question is: Does opera need to exist outside of the opera house? It's the amalgamation of all the performing and visual arts and it may be the one form that can't be transferred, at least meaningfully, to film.
While it's only a plot with 3 characters: two lovers and a villain who is focused on his erotic obsession with one of the lovers and a political enemy of the other. The opera holds one of the penultimate accomplishments in opera. The first act is basically the set-up for what happens in the next two. We're introduced to all the characters who already have a long history with one another, and Puccini masterfully fills us in on all of that with some of his most soaring music. But the majority of the first act is spare of anything we call "grand" opera. It's set is an empty cathedral, the characters are revealed through solo and duet, but it ends what becomes one of the most elaborate, and perhaps my favorite scene in all of opera.
In the final minutes of Act I. Puccini pulls out all the stops available to a composer, both with the orchestra and setting. The stage fills with all the spectacle the Catholic church provides. Every instrument available to orchestration is thrown in: a large chorus, a large organ, bells of all sorts while canons explode in the background. The "Te Deum" is set in counterpoint to villain's machinations ending in a breath-taking sacrilege initiated by a lie he's told to foment he destruction of the lovers so he can move in and satisfy his carnal desire ending with replacing God with his object of lust and hopefully executing his political rival. It's an unparalleled moment on the stage.
So, in this production, it's rather bold to throw all of that out the window, at least visually, and focus solely on the face of the villain in ever tightening close-up while the orchestra and chorus (and canon) boom in the background. Perhaps this is justifiable by focusing solely on the character's singular motive which has disastrous consequence for all three principals, but you wonder with having the luxury of using all the space available to filmmakers, when--on the stage--designers and directors are so limited in presenting this epic moment. It's powerful, but I wish Benoît Jacquot had gone with the more obvious choice. He didn't, but the rest of the production has such strength provided by the talents of the performers, orchestra and art direction, it's perhaps unfair to hang too much on this one, what I consider, mistake.
It's particularly strange because he succeeds with a gorgeous moment in the beginning of Act III. Where a shepherd's solo is filmed from an arial wide shot, in the darkness before dawn set in the fields outside the walls of Rome, illuminated by a single lantern as the shepherds and his flock wanders in the dark. It's a wonderful, imaginative moment, but why "open this up" to such vast space, and eliminate the spectacle of the "Te Deum"? Just to be contrary isn't really a good answer.
On the stage, we're given a lot of internal thoughts sung at full throat in front of the other characters. And that's always an awkward convention that seems more and more at odds with modern realism. Jacquot visually let's those internal thoughts stay in the character's heads by overdubbing. As well, his use of spoken dialogue to emphasize key moments which preface them being sung, rankles purists, but I thought it worked. Some of the visual conventions are already dated, using over or undersaturated and processed film to "open" up the visuals (for instance, showing a full moon when it's being sung about, or a cottage and garden with a water well, that we don't ever see on the stage). Even if the photography for those moments weren't so dated graphically--there's a long sequence where scenes we've seen are run in reverse meant to emphasize how inevitable the tragic consequences of various choices made by the characters led to what's coming and seals their fate--is unnecessary. It's not a long opera or even a film, so we don't need a redundant "rewind" of what we've just seen.
What is marvelous is the use of real locations, where only necessary elements of architecture aren't draped/masked in black, silhouetting the characters, and reducing the unnecessary detail that results from putting a stage play and shooting them in the real places. I thought that was a brilliant and inventive, and the best solution for moving action in a stage setting to a real location.
I can't fault any of the singing or acting, which is really what propels this piece out melodrama. The orchestra too is marvelous. The costuming elaborate and at the same time works in these real settings. In fact, the costume Tosca wears in the Acts II & III should be the model for any future production.
Is this the perfect "Tosca" on film? Well, for now, I think it is. But we need a definitive one where the Director doesn't give into excess (where this material begs for restraint). And perhaps the real question is: Does opera need to exist outside of the opera house? It's the amalgamation of all the performing and visual arts and it may be the one form that can't be transferred, at least meaningfully, to film.