Puccini Tosca opera to libretto by Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica. Directed 2009 by Robert Carsen at Opernhaus Zürich. Stars Emily Magee (Tosca), Jonas Kaufmann (Caravadossi), Thomas Hampson (Scarpia), Valeriy Murga (Angelotti), and Giuseppe Scorsin (Sacristan). Paolo Carignani conducts the Orchestra, Chorus and Children's Chorus of Opernhaus Zürich. Set and costume design by Anthony Ward; lighting design by Davy Cunningham. Directed for TV by Felix Breisach, executive producer was Alexander Pereira. Sung in Italian. Released 2014, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: D
All the improbabilities of the Tosca story can be swallowed if it’s set in Rome in 1800. But updating Tosca runs into this stumbling block: how does a woman under interrogation kill a chief of police and get out of the building undetected? It appears Robert Carson was presented with this when the management told him, “We blew our budget on Kaufmann, Hampson, and Magee. Now you have to do this with materials we have on hand.” “No problem,” said Carsen, “We will set Tosca in this opera house using costumes and canvas from the warehouse.” That’s why our first screenshot is in a theater and not in the church of Sant’Andrea della Valle:
Playbill publishes everywhere:
Scarpia will be the name of the opera house general manager. This GM always wears black tie and the office staff gets their choice of livery from the barn. Do you wonder why the huge picture is in the office?
The GM likes to terrify everyone by throwing tantrums and slicing up props with his Bowie knife:
This was before #MeToo. Our GM doesn’t bother with a casting couch. He prefers the floor. But this time he carelessly left his knife nearby. I’m not making this up. Pictures on the Internet don’t lie:
The diva turns down the role and leaves the dead GM with her resume:
Due to circumstances beyond control of management, your contact is terminated:
No need to build a prison set for Act 3. The Diva is shown jumping off a building by turning off a spotlight. Now that’s an economical scene:
This came out in 2011. The singing is pretty good, but trying to act all this out was an insurmountable challenge. Print critics were generally savage. Hugo Shirley, always a kind gentleman seeking to give constructive criticism, praised Carsen in the December 2014 Gramophone for “characteristic flair and style, and [for being] “refreshingly thought-provoking.” Well, now it’s 2020 and we have a number of good Tosca Blurays. We couldn’t recommend this disc unless you have a good special reason to buy it, which means a D under our grading scheme.
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