What are they fighting about in "Tosca"? A bit of Italian history

It's perfectly fine to ignore all the politics and talk of Napoleon when taking in a performance of Tosca. You can easily boil it down to this:

Scarpia is a bad guy, Cavaradossi is a good guy, Angelotti broke out of jail and Cavaradossi hides him. At first Cavaradossi's side loses, then his side wins, but he's doomed anyway. The end.

#FakeNews

Then again, you may find yourself a little curious as to what was so important that torture, suicide, execution and murder resulted. The libretto, based on Victorien Sardou's 1887 play, refers to historical events without explaining much about them; it's assumed you already know.

So, if you don't know, here's a short summary of what all the fuss was about.

The French Revolution ended in 1799 with the execution of Louis XVI, replacing the monarchy with a military government led by Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon fully intended that revolution would not stop there; he was determined to march into the Italian peninsula and bring the ideals of liberté, égalité and fraternité to Rome, replacing the Papal states with a republican government.

Opposing Napoleon was Queen Maria Carolina, an Austrian noble who married King Ferdinand IV of the kingdom of Naples. Ferdinand was a useless good-time Charlie, uninterested in affairs of state. Maria Carolina, on the other hand was shrewd, ambitious and scared.

Scared of what? Well, her sister happened to be an unlucky royal named Marie Antoinette.

Marie's fate prompted Maria Carolina, who initially favored an enlightened approach to governing, to make an about-face, violently opposing any hint of revolution in Rome. The actions she took included utilizing the Austrian army to oppose French forces at the French-Italian border, and hiring thugs from Sicily to come up to Rome as hired goons, giving them license to stamp out Roman revolutionaries by any means necessary. (Scarpia represents that aspect of her efforts.)

She also sought the support of the Roman Catholic Church, traveling to Rome for pow-wows with church leaders. The Church recognized Napoleon as an existential threat to its power, making them eager to ally themselves with her plans.

One of Napoleon's generals, Gen. Berthier, did set up a Roman Republic as early as 1798, but it wasn't popular with the citizens and the Queen's resources caused it to fall in 1799. One of it's leaders had been a certain Signor Angelucci, who becomes Angelotti in the opera.

But Napoleon was not to be deterred by this first setback. He began marching towards Italy (which was not yet the unified Italian nation we know today, but a collection of Austrian territories and city-kingdoms).

He was opposed by his Austrian counterpart, General Michael Melas. They met near the town of Marengo, in the Piedmont region right at the French border. This battle was waged on June 14, 1800. The Battle of Marengo is the galvanizing event that drives all the action in Tosca.

The opera begins on June 17, just as reports from the battlefield are trickling in. Without wire services or cable news, news of the battle trickled into Rome via couriers on horseback. If you know the opera story, you'll recall that the Sacristan enters in the middle of Act 1, agog with excitement. He's just heard the result he was hoping for: that scoundrel Napoleon was sent packing! Woo-hoo!

This was in fact good news for most Romans, who were content to live their lives in the warm (if suffocating) embrace of the Church. The majority would have regarded men like Angelotti as terrorists. This is the impetus for the final scene of the act, a spectacular service of thanksgiving to God for delivering the city from the evil French army. This is the Te Deum that brings down the curtain.

(Reality check: this Te Deum could not have been organized as quickly as the opera depicts. There really was a grand Te Deum when that Roman Republic fell in 1799; St. Peter's square was lined with 4,000 soldiers!. That takes some time to arrange logistics. But never mind, it's a great scene.)

At this point, I will point out a more recent event of history that is similar to the confusion of the Battle of Marengo: the American presidential election of 1948. Early returns favoring New York governor Thomas E. Dewey led the Chicago Tribune to publish an edition with the banner headline: DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN.

As it happens, Harry S. Truman had the last laugh, as the final vote count landed him in the White House. The photograph (shown above) of Truman gleefully displaying an iconic example of #FakeNews is a reminder of the adage about counting unhatched chickens.

Melas's apparent victory is the great #FakeNews of Tosca. Napoleon rallied his troops at the last stages of the battle, pulling out a dramatic victory. Puccini and his librettists, fully recognizing the dramatic potential, used Sciarrone's announcement that "Melas has fled" to bring about a moment of potent theatrical effectiveness: Cavaradossi, weakened after having been tortured to try to force him to disclose Angelotti's hiding place, staggers to the horrified Scarpia for a moment of "IN YOUR FACE". (That's my updated loose translation of the Italian "Vittoria! Vittoria")

The upset win by Napoleon had the effect of a bomb going off, both in Rome and in Scarpia's apartment at the Farnesi Palace. It literally brings about the doom of all three principal characters. Scarpia's rage at Cavaradossi's gloating leads to the order to execute him. That in turn leads to Tosca and Scarpia's negotiation for her lover's freedom, resulting in the police chief's murder and the diva's suicide.

The Battle of Marengo instigated a half-century or so of instability in Rome and the rest of the Italian region that waxed and waned until unification was finally achieved in 1870.

Thus, Tosca was written as a centennial observance of the events of a century earlier. As is often the case, the point of view of the opera's events has more to do with changing perceptions of a later time than how those events were seen as they were happening.

For Puccini, the alliance of Church and State was an entity of oppression, tyranny and evil. As noted above, however, Roman citizens had a far different view.

By the way, another aspect of the Battle of Marengo is Chicken Marengo, a dish that has come down to us today. French supplies were running low, so Napoleon had his troops forage for food in neighboring villages. They returned with the ingredients for a recipe calling for chicken, garlic, tomato, eggs and crayfish. Want to taste history? Here's a recipe from the New York Times that substitutes mushrooms for crayfish. It must be authentically French - the author's name is Pierre. Can't get more French than that...

Bon appétit!

Fiddle-dee-dee: Tosca, Scarlett O'Hara and their lost worlds

My last post dealt with the villainous Scarpia and his similarities (however superficial) to the Iago of Verdi's Otello. Now let's clarify Floria Tosca's circumstances by linking her to another character from literature:

Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara

Katie Scarlett O'Hara, the central figure of Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind.

This analogy really works, and I know because it's confirmed by Tosca's entrance music in Act 1, which implies the characteristics she shares with everyone's fave Southern belle.

Tosca's entrance is like that of other Puccini sopranos, namely Mimi and Butterfly. In all three cases, we hear them before we see them. This simple device creates anticipation in the audience, not to mention upping the chances that she'll be greeted with applause when she finally appears.Tosca's irritated cries of "Mario! Mario! Mario!" come in response to finding the doors to Sant'Andrea delle Valle locked.

Her entrance theme is lovely, but that's the least important thing about it. You can listen to it in this vintage recording starring Dorothy Kirsten as Tosca. The theme in question begins at 9:57. Listen all the way to the end of the passage at about 11:33.

Now, Tosca doesn't initially sing that theme; it's just heard in the orchestra. She's far too distracted by jealous suspicions that her lover Cavaradossi is unfaithful to be attuned to the affect of her theme.

The theme communicates simplicity, serenity and a kind of spiritual bliss. Here it is if you can't listen:

What does this tell us about Tosca and the life she's been leading? Her life has been idyllic: she's beautiful, talented and widely admired - a celebrity in the Rome of 1800. She spends her days singing music. She is the one Catholic in the opera who is NOT corrupt and hypocritical; she is devout. She has a child-like faith, bringing flowers to the Madonna daily. Her lover is a handsome and successful artist. 

Life is great. But war, brought about by Napoleon's plan to march into Rome and end the stranglehold of the Bourbon monarchy and the Church, will destroy her idyllic life of music, love, flowers and the Virgin Mary with the force of a bomb. 

Tosca's doom ends not just her personal happiness, but that of pre-war Rome as well. Most Roman citizens enjoyed a certain complacency of daily life just as she did. Revolution was not desired; the vast majority of Romans were happy to bask in the comfort of a life dominated by the Catholic Church.

And what of Scarlett O'Hara? Just substitute "Antebellum South" for "Pre-war Rome" and the two women's circumstances are remarkably similar. Scarlett has been living an idyllic existence as well; her biggest concerns were which fabulous dress to wear to the next ball, flitting from barbecue to barbecue and letting young men fight over which one could bring her a dessert.

This lifestyle is aptly described in the opening crawl in the film version of Gone With The Wind:

There was a land of Cavaliers and Cotton Fields called the Old South...  Look for it only in books, for it is no more than a dream remembered. A Civilization gone with the wind...

The complacency of the Old South was obliterated by war, just as Tosca's simple concerns were taken by men and their wars.

But what Puccini does with Tosca's theme takes one's breath away with the craftsmanship and insight of a master dramatist.

The theme makes just one more appearance: it forms the greater part of Tosca's iconic aria "Vissi d'arte, vissi d'amore" midway in Act 2. Here's a video of the aria sung by Sondra Radvanovsky. The theme in question begins at 1:03

By now, Tosca and Cavaradossi have endured intolerable adversity including the harrowing torture of the latter, Cavaradossi's ill-advised gloating upon the news of Napoleon's surprise victory at Marengo; Scarpia's order to have him shot at dawn; and Scarpia's demand of sex with Tosca in exchange for her lover's life.

What a choice - permit Scarpia to rape her or watch as Mario faces a firing squad. The awful reality hits her hard. While Scarpia awaits her decision, she registers an acknowledgement that her innocent religious faith may have been for nothing:

I lived for art, I lived for love: 
never did I harm a living creature! 
Whatever misfortunes I encountered I sought with secret hand to succour. 
Ever in pure faith, my prayers rose in the holy chapels. 
Ever in pure faith, I brought flowers to the altars. 
In this hour of pain, why, why, oh Lord, why dost Thou repay me thus? 
Jewels I brought for the Madonna's mantle, 
and songs for the stars in heaven that they shone forth with greater radiance. 
In this hour of distress, why, why, oh Lord, why dost Thou repay me thus?

What, then does it mean that these words are set to the same melody that previously defined her perfect life? It signals that she knows that life is over; she sings the melody as one clinging to a prized possession, aware that it's slipping away, no longer available.

THAT is why the aria is beautiful; not because the music is "lovely" or "pretty" or "ear-candy", even though it's all that as well.

And in fact, life in Rome was never the same, just as in Scarlett's post-war Georgia. Scarlett's world became a world of uncomfortable race relations, poverty, carpetbaggers and other new realities. As for Rome, the entire Italian peninsula embarked on a difficult path towards unification as a single nation in place of the old order of city-states, kingdoms and Austrian satellites, a unification not achieved for over half a century.

Scarpia: Shakespeare- ish and Iago-y?

If I were to compare Mario Cavaradossi (the subject of last week's post) to another character, it might be Luke Skywalker from the Star Wars saga.

Shakespeare
Did his villain inspire Puccini's?

Think about it: in the initial Star Wars movie, Luke tells Obi-wan that, naturally, he's against the evil Empire, but he doesn't really want to get involved. By the end of that film, however, he's in the Rebellion up to his eyeballs and acts heroically. Cavaradossi tells Angelotti of his loathing for Scarpia, that vicious agent of the Bourbon monarchy, but to this point in his life he's been content to create beautiful paintings and be Floria Tosca's lover. As with Luke, that all changes as Puccini's Tosca progresses.

Next week I'll have a corresponding character match for Tosca herself, but this post is all about the Baron Scarpia, Chief of Police in Rome.

I don't even have to think up a character match for Scarpia: he does it himself! Whatever else we may think of him, Scarpia is an excellent policeman, with investigative chops worthy of any detective on TV. He quickly infers the meaning of the various clues left at Sant'Andrea delle Valle, correctly deducing that Cavaradossi is in league with the escaped fugitive Angelotti. When Tosca shows up in search of Mario, Scarpia instantly realizes that if he arouses her notorious jealous streak, she'll likely lead him to both men.

This is when he realizes his character match.

"Iago had a handkerchief, and I a fan to drive a jealous lover to distraction!" he says, holding the fan with which he intends to "prove" that Cavaradossi has been unfaithful. 

In Act 2 it becomes clear that this connection to Iago, the villain in Verdi's adaptation of Shakespeare's Othello, is very important to Puccini and his librettists. In Scarpia's monologue at the top of the act, pains are taken to drive home the similarity between the two characters. The conclusion of the monologue contains, if you will, Scarpia's "Credo", a moment in which he acknowledges his lack of moral compass:

"For myself the violent conquest
has stronger relish than the soft surrender.
I take no delight in sighs or vows
exchanged at misty lunar dawn.
I know not how to draw
harmony from guitars, or horoscopes
from flowers, nor am I apt at dalliance,
or cooing like the turtle dove. I crave,
I pursue the craved thing, satiate myself and cast it by,
and seek new bait. God made diverse beauties
as he made diverse wines, and of these
God-like works I mean to taste my full."

The last two sentences are delivered at the top of his lungs, with fierceness and arrogance. It's meant to put us in mind of Iago's full-throated "Credo" at the top of Act 2 in Otello:

I believe in a cruel God

Who has created me in His image

And who I call upon in hate.

I was born from some vile seed or base atom.

I am evil because I am a man,

And I feel primordial slime in me.

Got it? They're both bad to the bone without any trace of conscience or shame. SCARPIA  IS IAGO.

But is he, though?

In Your Faithful Blogger's opinion, Scarpia's identification with Iago isn't completely convincing. It rests wholly on the premise of using a rival's jealous nature to achieve one's evil intentions. But the similarity ends there!

The reason Iago is such a memorable character is that he presents an amiable, empathetic facade to others; he's the one man no one would ever suspect of cruelty. His manipulation is so subtle that the other characters never realize he was doing it until it's too late.

Scarpia, on the other hand, is a violent thug, and everybody in Rome knows it, as Tosca makes plain in her famous epitaph over his corpse: 

"And before him trembled all of Rome."

This leads us to realize that, in reality, Baron Scarpia is kind of an anti-Iago - in methods if not in evil agendas. Perhaps his facile self-analysis reveals that he is incapable of seeing himself as he really is. He's failed to follow the iconic advice of Sophocles:

Know thyself.

Inside the characters of Tosca: 1. Cavaradossi

Virginia Opera starts off the 2019-2020 season with a bang: Puccini's ever-popular Tosca. (When I say "bang", by the way, I mean literally: this opera is filled with cannon-fire and rifle shots in addition to gorgeous music.)

Enrico Caruso as Cavaradossi

My plan for the next few weeks is to take a moderately deep dive into the arias assigned to Tosca, her lover Cavaradossi and the villain Scarpia. Let's see what the music is revealing about the respective characters, as well as what it reveals about the composer's craftsmanship. We'll start with our favorite artist-cum-revolutionary, Mario Cavaradossi.

At it's core, this opera is about the conflict between Art, Beauty, and Liberty (the latter represented by Napoleon Bonaparte) and oppressive tyranny, represented by the twin forces of the Bourbon monarchy and the Catholic church.

While this conflict will eventually pit Cavaradossi against Scarpia, it's actually foreshadowed in the opening aria of Act 1, Cavaradossi's "Recondita armonia". Let's examine this character's first scene in a little detail.

When Cavaradossi (hereafter to be called by his given name "Mario" because it's tedious to type out his last name...) enters the church of Sant'Andrea delle Valle to resume painting his work in progress, the bumbling old Sacristan is kneeling in prayer, reciting the Angelus in something of a going-through-the-motions monotone. Mario's first words are directed to him: "Che fai?" ("What are you doing?}

This is significant. This simple question tells us that Mario is so disinterested in religion and the life and rituals of the church that he fails to recognize the Sacristan's mumbling as prayer. The logical question would be: "Hey Mario, he's an ordained holy man, kneeling in front of a statue of the Virgin Mary, and the Angelus bell just rang. What did you think he was doing, ordering a pizza?"

So in just two words, it's established that this painter is a secular artist, to be judged as a heathen by Church and State. This is borne out by the obvious contempt the Sacristan has for Mario; he keeps up a judgmental commentary all through the aria: "Jest with knaves and neglect the saints". Once the aria is concluded, the Sacristan will continue a private tirade during which he calls Mario (to whom he is obsequiously compliant when face to face) "an agnostic dog" and an "enemy of the Holy Government".

As for Mario, the Holy Government is the farthest thing from his mind: he's busy comparing the beauty of his subject, the Mary Magdalene, to his lover Floria Tosca.

The orchestral introduction is full of meaning, and it's an advancement in Puccini's approach to a tenor aria. (You can refer to this video of Placido Domingo's performance.) Consider the introductions to tenor arias in Puccini's previous two works. In Manon Lescaut, de Grieux's "Donna non vidi mai" has an introduction that is a winding-down of the busy theme assigned to the chorus of students; it has no meaning specific to des Grieux. In La bohème, the introduction describes the physical action on stage: Rodolfo surreptitiously edging closer and closer to Mimi until he can grasp her hand simultaneously with a note from the French horn.

In Recondita armonia, however, the orchestral introduction is a mini tone-poem characterizing Mario. It's suave, graceful and above all sensuous. It's the polar opposite of, say, the macho intro to Manrico's "Di quella pira" in Verdi's Il Trovatore. Now we have some insight into who this man is.

And what follows, as Mario begins to sing, is a paean to Female Beauty in which the artist rhapsodizes about the contrasting beauties of Tosca and the "unknown beauty" who has been serving, unaware, as his model for Mary Magdalene. Mario has recently had several appreciative eyefuls of a blue-eyed blond who has been frequenting Sant'Andrea in an apparently devout period of several days' daily prayer. (She's not really been coming to pray, but that's another topic...)

Later in Act 1, Tosca will erupt into a jealous rage when she recognizes this woman as a prominent local citizen: the Marchesa Attavanti. Mario will allay her suspicions with a combination of amused denial (he does a lot of denying in this opera!) and ardent sweet-talking.

I think we too often dismiss Tosca's jealousy as a quirk of her personality; we assume Mario is true-blue and would NEVER betray her. But that might be a hasty assumption!

Listen to the aria: Puccini is clearly telling us that Mario is fully appreciative of the physical charms of the Marchesa. Yes, he concludes by declaring that his sole thought is of Tosca, but I read him as a young man with an eye for attractive women at all times. Perhaps Tosca has noticed that when they're together on the streets of Rome, he'll incline his head slightly when a beautiful female passes them. Has he been unfaithful to Tosca? I doubt it, mostly because everything about their scenes together suggests that they've not been in love for very long. Their love duets have the blissful heady affect of infatuation. My guess: they've been together for no more than a few weeks. A man still sexually enthralled to a woman will happily resist temptation from all quarters, even when acknowledging such temptation.

Another significant bit of information we garner from the vocal writing in this solo: Mario has had a life of privilege. He's young, handsome, gifted, and supremely optimistic. He's full of self-confidence: the world is his oyster. He's never experienced any serious adversity in his life. This is what I hear in the soaring, sweeping, yet fundamentally relaxed phrases that pour out of him. The dramatic significance of this affect is this: the character begins his journey with no problems in his life. From this point he'll encounter a "series of unfortunate events" that will lead to his doom.

Another bit of proof that Mario is hyper-aware of the Marchesa's charms: the orchestral postlude consists of the theme that Puccini assigned to her, not to Tosca.

He just declared his preference for the dark-haired, dark-eyed Tosca, but it's the music of the blond goddess-model that seems to linger in his consciousness.

Final note: this aria is part of a structural design for Act 1 that will be duplicated in Act 3, thus giving the opera the sort of symmetry that is useful in expressing tragic irony. The design has three elements:

1. a tenor aria in which Mario  expresses his desire for Tosca;
2. a love duet for the two of them, followed by
3. the intrusion of Scarpia's malevolence, splitting them apart.

In Act 1, Scarpia's interference is done in person when he bursts into the church; in the final scene it's his evil scheme that intrudes on the happiness of the lovers; a scheme that survives his death at Tosca's hands.