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.