Baltimore Opera Company

Study Guide

Tosca

At A Glance

Opera in three acts

Music – Giacomo Puccini (JAH-coh-moh Poo-CHEE-nee)

b. 22 December, 1858; Lucca , Italy

d. 29 November, 1924; Brussels , Belgium

Libretto – Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica, based on La Tosca by Victorien Sardou

Premiere: 14 January, 1900; Teatro Constanzi, Rome , Italy

Principal Characters:

Tosca (TOH-scah) an opera singer Soprano

Mario Cavaradossi (MA-ree-oh Cah-vah-rah-DOS-see ) Tenor

a painter, Tosca's lover

Scarpia (SCAHR-pee-ah) Chief of Police in Rome Baritone

Angelotti (Ahn-geh-LOHT-tee) an escaped political prisoner Baritone

Spoletta (Spoh-LEHT-tah) police officer Tenor

Sciarrone (Sheeah-ROHN-neh) police officer Baritone

Sagrestano (Sah-greh-STAH-noh) Sacristan of the church Bass

Tosca (TOH-sca) takes place in Rome in June of 1800.

Giacomo Puccini

Giacomo Puccini once described himself as “a mighty hunter of wild fowl, opera libretti and attractive women.” He composed three of the most popular operas ever written; died worth an estimated $4 million (still in dispute by his grand-daughter Simonetta); and still had plenty of opportunity to play poker, hunt ducks at his lake lodge, and indulge his passions for fast boats, fast cars and fast women.

Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was the last in a line of five generations of respected musicians. From birth, he was expected to be a composer. The young Giacomo was anything but a prodigy, however. His early teachers were frustrated by his laziness. He showed enough talent to earn a scholarship to the Milan Conservatory (the same Conservatory that denied entrance to Giuseppe Verdi) and studied there with Amilcare Ponchielli, composer of La Gioconda.

His first success as a composer came with Le Villi in 1884, a work that brought him to the attention of Giulio Ricordi, head of the powerful Ricordi publishing firm. Ricordi championed the talented Puccini and “stuck with [him] through everything, and never made a better investment.” It was just as well that Ricordi had made the commitment, for Puccini's next opera, Edgar (1889), was a failure. Manon Lescaut brought moderate success in 1893. In 1896, Puccini became rich (and Ricordi even richer) with the success of La Bohème , certainly one of opera's most beautiful and popular works. Always, however, Ricordi had his hands full fighting Puccini's laziness.

Puccini was never particularly interested in the music scene, nor did he care much about other composers. He took little part in politics or the world around him and had few (if any) close friends. His marriage was a stormy and unhappy one, and his extramarital affairs were chiefly loveless recreation. Yet his operas are full of emotion, tender and sensuous melody of which Puccini was master. The characters that populate his operas are also very real and all too human, especially his heroines. The stories are straightforward and easy to follow, and audiences react with empathy to the problems the characters encounter. Puccini knew how to stir the emotions of his audiences and he did so unabashedly.

Most of Puccini's operas were immediate successes. One notable exception was Madama Butterfly , another of his enduring masterpieces, which met with a rare reception at its opening at La Scala in February, 1904. It was a fiasco, with the audience reacting with shouts and whistles. Puccini, believing it to be his best and most technically advanced opera yet, withdrew it after the premiere performance. He carefully revised it and opened it in May of the same year to great acclaim.

Turandot, Puccini's last opera, was to be his grandest. He envisioned an exotic and fairytale atmosphere, but with characters of real humanity. He poured himself into this composition like no other before. He was unable to complete the work, however; Puccini died during treatment for throat cancer, leaving sketches for the final two scenes. These sketches were used by Franco Alfano to finish the work. At the premiere of Turandot at La Scala on April 25, 1926, conductor Arturo Toscanini turned to the audience during the third act and said, “Here the master laid down his pen”. The performance ended there. On the following evening Toscanini conducted the opera with Alfano's ending.

Maria Jeritza, Puccini's favorite Tosca , related a story that reflects what she believed to be Puccini's musical philosophy. “Carissima mia,” he said to her, “you have to walk on clouds of melody.” Giacomo Puccini, a true master of beautiful tune, gave us a heaven full of melody on which to walk.

-Susan Fahrig

 Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa

An extremely adventuresome and daring personality, Luigi Illica was born on May 9, 1857 in the hamlet of Castel'Arquato near Piacenza . A rift with his father led to his running away from home to fight against the Turks. In 1881, he returned to Italy to establish a radical literary review in Bologna . Having found his literary voice, he began to try his hand at poetry and plays. Illica began to move in the artistic circles of Milan and met the influential composers of the day, with whom be began to collaborate.

Illica's first important libretto was for Alfredo Catalani's La Wally (1892), although he did some work for some of the lesser known operatic composers of the day, such as Antonio Smareglia, Gaetano Luporino and Spiro Samara (it sounds like the rear guard of the Italian World Cup team!). His work in these circles brought him to the attention of Giacomo Puccini, who invited him to join the troubled Manon Lescaut team. Their collaboration was so successful that Illica went on (with his partner Giuseppe Giacosa, the music critic) to provide Puccini with the texts for La Bohème , Tosca and Madama Butterfly . Other important texts for which Illica is responsible are Umberto Giordano's Andrea Chénier (1896), Pietro Mascagni's beautiful Oriental-inspired Iris (1898), and Mascagni's Pre-Raphaelite Isabeau (1911). Illica's own personal penchant for adventure and high drama, as well as his delight in documenting historical accuracy, perfectly complemented the lyric works of the verismo period in which he lived and worked.

Born in Colleretto Parella (near Turin ) on October 21, 1847, Giuseppe Giacosa was brought up in a well-to-do family; his father was a respected Piedmontese lawyer. The young scion was expected to follow in his father's footsteps, taking a degree in law at the University of Turin and opening a practice there. However, after having fulfilled his family obligation, he soon turned to his real love, playwriting, and after achieving a modicum of theatrical success, he was given a teaching position at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Turin .

Primarily known as a dramatist and critic, Giacosa's career as an opera librettist was short but significant. Through his friendship with the music publisher Giulio Ricordi, he made acquaintance with Puccini, who asked him to help with the writing of the text for Manon Lescaut . He demurred, but suggested Luigi Illica, who had a tremendous success. Illica, ever mindful of this assistance from the older and more cerebral Giacosa, asked him to collaborate on the next Puccini opera, La Bohème , and they continued to collaborate on Tosca and Madama Butterfly . Their modus operandi was to have Illica write the structure and first draft of the libretto, and then Giacosa would work on refining the tone and versification. This system suited both of their personalities—Illica the more rash, histrionic character, and Giacosa the more refined, academic persona. Certainly, their extremes of character frequently led to artistic clashes, but both Ricordi and Puccini served as moderators for any feuds that would come along. The legendary team of Illica and Giacosa would undoubtedly have continued were it not for Giacosa's death on September 2, 1906 in his hometown of Collereto Parella.

-James Harp

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