By Giacomo Puccini
A N E ducator’s G uide To Tosca
HOW TO USE THIS GUIDE
Opera offers a unique teaching opportunity—to explore the arts through many different disciplines—from literature and drama, to history and music. This guide has been designed to provide teachers with suggestions on how to integrate the music and historical background of Puccini’s Tosca into their existing curricula. For applicable National Standards, please contact the Washington National Opera’s Education and Community Programs Department at 202.448.3466 or at education@dc-opera.org.
WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU GET THERE?
The dress rehearsal of Tosca will begin promptly at 7:00 p.m. Please plan to arrive early, as the Opera House doors open 30 minutes prior to the start of the performance. Latecomers will be seated only at suitable breaks in the music—often not until intermission.
When you arrive at the Kennedy Center Opera House, please have your dress rehearsal passes ready. Seating at Washington National Opera’s dress rehearsals is open. Please check your ticket for the area of the Opera House in which you will sit. Ushers will be available to assist you.
The estimated running time for this rehearsal of Tosca is two hours and 31 minutes, with two intermissions.
YOUR ROLE IN THE OPERA
Opera is a collaborative art. It requires the work of many people, including the director, designer, singer-actors, orchestra, technicians, crew, and the audience. The audience is an important part of every performance. Your role is to suspend disbelief and imagine that the story enacted before you is really happening; to let the action and music surround you, and to become part of the show. To help your students feel comfortable with their role as operagoers, Washington National Opera has prepared some tips for performance etiquette. Please review “What Will You See?” and “What Do You Wear? And Other Stuff…” (in the Student Guide) with your students. By following these guidelines, everyone will have a positive experience!
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DANCE-MOVEMENTPHYSICAL EDUCATION-THEATER
While composing La Bohème, Puccini traveled to Florence to see the play La Tosca by the popular French playwright, Victorien Sardou. The title role of Tosca was performed by the celebrated actress, Sarah Bernhardt. Bernhardt’s interpretation of Tosca inspired Giacomo Puccini’s opera. For the première of Tosca (January 14, 1900, Rome), Puccini carefully selected opera singers who could act and use movement to reinforce and punctuate the action-packed plot. Puccini’s Tosca uncovered the very dark side of human nature. With Tosca, Puccini created an opera of heightened dramatic effect. Besides contracting singers who paid attention to dramatic nuances, Puccini hired his publisher’s son, Tito Ricordi, for the original production of Tosca. Ricordi was a stage director who took great care over production elements. He also rehearsed the performers intensely so they would understand the depth of their characters. Musicologist Saul Lilienstein has commented that there are key moments of well-executed pan-
(composer) and Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica (librettists)
Lesson
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tomime (communication by way of gesture and facial expression) in the best productions of Tosca.
•Watch films or documentaries with your students featuring movement masters from fields as diverse as athletics, dance, pantomime, and theater such as: Nadia Comaneci (gymnastics); Mia Hamm (soccer); Alvin Ailey, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Merce Cunningham, Martha Graham (dance); Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton (pantomime); Peking (Beijing) Opera members (theater/opera); and Meryl Streep (theater). Ask your students to be critical in their viewing and have them lead a discussion about any repeated or signature movements the above people executed in the films.
•Have your students observe and write down lists of people’s everyday movements (e.g., walking to the bus, running in the park, lifting groceries, dancing at a party, laughing at a joke, brushing teeth). Then, encourage them to use facial expression, movement, and posture to express to their classmates where they are, who they are, and what they are feeling.
•Challenge: Ask your students to use movement to articulate Cavaradossi’s joy when he learns from Tosca that he will only be subject to a mock execution. Then, encourage your students to use movement to express the same scene with an entirely different vantage point-where Cavaradossi senses the truth about his impending death but feigns happiness for the sake of his love, Tosca.
HISTORY-TECHNOLOGY
Born in 1880 in Palermo, Italy, American composer and bandleader Vincent Rose hit it big with his song (lyrics by Al Jolson), Avalon, in 1920. A year later, the estate and the publisher of Puccini’s operas, G. Ricordi, claimed that the top-of-the charts sensation was not Rose’s at all. G. Ricordi claimed that the catchy melody was stolen or plagiarized from Puccini’s famed aria, E lucevan le stelle (“And the stars were shining”)— Cavaradossi’s sorrowful farewell aria to Tosca in the opera’sthird act! The Court found in favor of Puccini and his publisher. As settlement of this copyright lawsuit, Puccini and Ricordi were awarded $25,000 in damages, plus all future royalties to Avalon. It has been said that Puccini purchased his first motorboat with some of the money he was awarded from the copyright case.
Around the same time as the Rose/Puccini-Ricordi scandal, another giant of American song was involved in a legal controversy. Composer of hits such as Ol’ Man River and Smoke Gets inYour Eyes, Jerome Kern, was the defendant in a case (Fred Fisher, Inc. v. Dillingham). The Court found that his song, Kalua, published in 1921, infringed the copyright of Dardanella (a popular song in the years 1919 and 1920 and one of Billboard’s first Number One hits). Kern’s fortune was not severely depleted from the outcome of this case (he had to pay the plaintiff $250) but his career was blemished.
In contemporary music such as hip-hop and some forms of jazz, “sampling” is common practice, where a portion (such as a melodic phrase) of a recording is reused as an element in a new recording. Some musical groups have violated copyright law, however, by sampling illegally. A few famous court cases involve the misuse of Beatles and U2 songs, for example.
•Ask your students to search the Internet for information on operas that have been the source of inspiration for new musical productions. Have them investigate how the original musical themes have been reworked to fit a more contemporary context (e.g., the Broadway show Rent and its link to Puccini’s La Bohème; the film Carmen Jones and its relationship to Georges Bizet’s opera, Carmen; the Broadway show Kismet and its connection to the Russian composer Alexander Borodin).
•Challenge: Encourage your students to research online famous cases of copyright infringement as well as the concept of “fair use.” Have the students prepare a debate (in teams) for both sides of their cases.
Set in June 1800, Tosca is positioned in a time of great uncertainty and corruption. The shadowy Scarpia represents the old regime in Italy that aggressively resisted the ideals of the French Revolution and fervently championed the idea that power belongs to the state. On the other hand, Cavaradosssi, a sculptor and intellectual, gives voice to the increasingly restless mass of the people who resented traditional authority.
•Ask your students to investigate the opera’s tumultuous historical context, an era in which Napoleon Bonaparte was the most feared (and in some cases, admired) person in Europe. Encourage them to compare the Napoleonic age to the late 19th to early 20th century society in which Puccini lived.
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HISTORY-TECHNOLOGY
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The composer Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) was an integral part of the European Romantic movement and was an immensely popular figure in his lifetime. Verdi was the most important master of Italian opera in Puccini’s youth and early middle-age. Verdi’s La traviata (1853) introduced the wanton, consumptive heroine to the operatic stage, foreshadowing Puccini’s La Bohème. Interestingly enough, Verdi once remarked that, had he been younger, he would have liked to compose an opera such as Tosca.
Unlike Puccini, however, Verdi was a key individual in the Italian nationalist movement; in Verdi’s 50-year career, he offered significant musical expression to Italian nationalist hopes. He even became a member of the first Italian national parliament. Even further, Verdi’s own name became a political statement; “Viva Verdi” was a national rallying cry-an acronym of “Vittorio Emanuele Re d’Italia” (King of Italy).
Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) focused on his art rather than on contemporary politics. It may seem surprising then, that one of his last compositions, Inno di Roma, was used by Benito Mussolini as an anthem for the Fascist party.
•Have your students compare and contrast Puccini and Verdi. Ask them to specifically focus on the composers’ political views.
•Challenge: Encourage your students to research artists during the 19th and 20th centuries who were considered subversive due to their political opinions or expressions. Have your students examine how these artists were treated in light of their beliefs and choices (e.g, censored, blacklisted, interrogated, etc.).
PUCCINI ON TOSCA
MUSIC
Puccini’s musical choices in Tosca (themes, tonal colors, and harmonic structure) were a departure from his earlier works, Manon Lescaut and La Bohème. Rather than projecting a predominantly romantic sound, Tosca is filled with sounds that startle and create relentless tension. From the opening sinister-sounding chords of the first three bars in Act I, the audience is roused immediately. The sound is very heavy. Puccini’s use of the brass section and the lower instruments of the orchestra gives the listener an immediate sense of the gravity to come. The initial three-chord motif is heard throughout the opera and becomes associated with the menacing Roman chief of police, Baron Scarpia:
•Ask your students to listen closely to Tosca during the dress rehearsal and/or on CD and see if they can identify how many times this motif appears; sometimes it is obvious but, at times, it seems to loom just beneath the surface.
•Challenge: See if your students can determine the Scarpia motif’s harsh-sounding musical interval (augmented fourth).
The character Tosca, who is at once a religious as well as an independent, passionate woman (which was an unusual depiction for a female character in the 19th century), sings in Act I of her idyllic country villa (“la nostra casetta”) that she visits with her lover. However, even in this heavenly passage, there are moments of uneasiness.
•Encourage your students to discover the musical lapses in their idyllic relationship, where Floria Tosca’s jealous nature gets the best of her and where Mario Cavaradossi brings her back to tranquility.
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Giacomo Puccini remarked that his most popular compositions, Tosca and his preceding work, LaBohème, are operas of a very different color:
•“Il colore non è più romantico e lirico, ma sensuale, appassionato e torbido. Non persone buone e amabili, ma individui loschi come Scarpia e Spoletta. E gli eroi non sono docili come Rodolfo e Mimì, ma attivi e coraggiosi.”
The plot plays with passions rather than feelings. In Bohème the villain was fate, represented by illness, and the characters had to accept it while moving toward an unavoidable ending (there is minimal action on stage). In Tosca both heros and villains are humans who struggle on stage, and you can expect a coup de théâtre at any moment.
(general summary—not literal translation—of Puccini’s quote from OperaGlass Software by G. Christen, 1995)
MUSIC
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Italian opera in the 19th century was experiencing a marked change when Puccini composed Tosca. Taking inspiration from the literary Realism and Naturalism movements led by the French novelist Émile Zola and others, composers such as Puccini and even earlier composers like Bizet supported the Verismo operatic movement. Verismo literally means "realism" in Italian. The comical and heroic characters of opera composers like Rossini and Verdi were replaced with everyday people. Lush settings were dismissed for gritty back alleys and ordinary places.
•Have your students find definitions of Verismo opera and works in this movement. Ask them to reflect upon what cultural influences moved opera towards this new “realistic” direction.
VISUAL ART
It seems entirely plausible that Puccini’s character, Mario Cavaradossi, could have been inspired by the Italian sculptor Giuseppe Ceracchi. Born in Rome in the year 1751 and executed in 1801 in Paris by the sharp end of the guillotine, Ceracchi is recognized primarily for his portrait busts of the heroes of the American Revolution such as Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Hamilton. These marble portraits were completed during Ceracchi’s two visits to the United States (1791-2 and 1794-5).
•Ask your students to examine other details of Ceracchi’s turbulent life and career that add up to a convincing case that he may have been the historical model for Puccini’s Cavaradossi.
•Challenge: Have your students research what works of Giuseppe Ceracchi’s are found in what room of the White House. (Hint: These pieces were damaged during a White House tour in 1998.) Also, encourage your students to find out where Ceracchi’s own portrait lives and the name of the American painter who created the work (Metropolitan Museum, John Trumbull).
LANGUAGE ARTS-THEATER
In Tosca, there is an intentional reference to Shakespeare. More specifically, there is a turning point in the opera where Baron Scarpia realizes that he can plant into the already jealous Tosca the idea that her Cavaradossi is unfaithful. An innocent fan of another woman becomes the poison.
•Encourage your students to review Shakespearean Tragedy (Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth) to find a
parallel narrative-where a seemingly harmless object serves a dramatic purpose. Ask them the question: “Which character in Shakespeare’s work plants in the mind of his ‘friend’ a terrible lie that festers into the undoing of a romantic relationship and ends in great tragedy?” (Iago in Othello)
For those supporters of state authority like the corrupt Scarpia, the idea of holding religion and authority up to the harsh brightness of the Age of Enlightenment was not only a thing abhorred but a scrutiny feared.
•Have your students analyze the significance of Scarpia’s depiction of the artist Cavaradossi in Act I: Lui! L’amante di Tosca. Un uom Sospetto! Un volterrian!
(Him! Tosca’s lover. A suspected man! A follower of Voltaire!)
MATHEMATICS-SCIENCE
Giacomo Puccini demanded authencity and accuracy in Tosca. His relationship with the priest, Father Panichelli, was very beneficial. The holy man offered Puccini advice on church celebrations and costumes and assisted him with a chant for the Te Deum in Tosca’s Act I. Their friendship led Puccini to a contact at the historic St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. The aquaintance assisted Puccini in deciphering the exact pitch (it is a natural mi (E)) of the deep-ringing bell (or camparone) in the church’s belfry. This knowledge helped Puccini compose the morning bells music in Act III. The use of bells has been intertwined throughout human history as a tool for communication. Not only have they been utilized in religious worship but bells have also served as musical instruments. Some groups of people have used bells as signaling devices to sound warnings, celebrations, or attacks. Many ancient Chinese bells are more than 3,000 years old. In Western society, bells became more widely used as musical instruments around the 17th century when bell makers began to develop tuning practices.
Scientists, musicians, and bell makers continue to work together to study bells and the tones they produce. Through holographic interferometry (a branch of science devoted to the study and measurement of the interaction of waves, such as electromagnetic waves and acoustic waves) and sound radiation, bell vibrations can be observed and studied.
•Ask your students to explore the acoustics of bells. Encourage them to find out if certain materials (e.g, aluminium, bronze) and/or weight make a difference in how bells sound.
SUGGESTED FURTHER LISTENING AND READING
Puccini, Giacomo. La Bohème. Cheryl Barker, David Hobson, Roger Lemke, et al., The Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra / Julian Smith (cond.), Baz Luhrmann (dir.). Image Entertainment 14381191820, 1993. DVD
Puccini, Giacomo. La Bohème. Mirella Freni, Luciano Pavarotti, et al., Deutschen Staatsopernchor Berlin, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra/Herbert von Karajan (cond.). Decca 421049, 1990. CD (2)
Puccini, Giacomo. Tosca. Catherine Malfitano, Plácido Domingo (General Director, Washington National Opera), Ruggero Raimondi, et al., Coro y Orquesta de la Radio-Televisión de Roma / Zubin Mehta (cond.),
S ources
BOOKS
Apel, Willi, and Ralph T. Daniel. The Harvard Brief Dictionary of Music. New York: Washington Square Press, 1960.
Guinn, John and Les Stone, eds. The St. James Opera Encyclopedia: A Guide to People and Works. Detroit: Visible Ink Press, 1997.
Ramsden, Timothy. Puccini. London: Omnibus Press, 1996.
Sadie, Stanley, ed. The New Grove Book of Operas. St. Martin's Press, 1996.
ELECTRONIC MEDIA
Answers.com website, accessed 6 March 2005. http://www.answers.com/topic/la-tosca
Bandwidth Market website, accessed 15 March 2005. http://www.bandwidthmarket.com/resources/glossary/ I3.html
Radio Beethoven website, accessed 15 March 2005. http://www.beethovenfm.cl/programacion/programas/OPERAS/tosca.act
Bryant, Julius. Grove art online. [Oxford, England]: Oxford University Press, 2004, accessed 8 March 2005. http://www.groveart.com
Christen, G. OperaGlass. [available on-line via link from NPR’s At the Opera: http://www.npr.org/programs/attheopera/archives/010609.ato.html), 1995, accessed 3 March 2005.
http://opera.stanford.edu/Puccini/Tosca/backgd.html
Andrea Andermann (prod.). Teldec 90212-3, 1992. VHS (Telecast live and filmed at the actual places of and the chronological time in which the action takes place within the Tosca story.)
Puccini, Giacomo. Tosca [Original Recording Remastered]. Maria Callas, Giuseppe di Stefano, Tito Gobbi, et al., L’Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala/Victor de Sabata (cond.). EMI Classics 62893, 2004. CD (2).
Ramsden, Timothy. Puccini. London: Omnibus Press, 1996.
http://www.npr.org/programs/worldofopera/
Composers-Lyricists Database. [available on-line], accessed 6 March 2005.
http://nfo.net/cal/tr8.html
Layne, Joslyn. All Music Guide. [Yahoo! Shopping online], accessed 4 March 2005.
http://shopping.yahoo.com/p:Vincent%20Rose:192717 7214:page=biography
Metropolitan Museum of Art website, accessed 6 March 2005.
http://www.metmuseum.org
Museum Security Network website, accessed 7 March 2005.
http://www.museum-security.org/reports/00698.html
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution website, accessed 8 March 2005.
http://www.npg.si.edu/exh/gw/gwexh.htm
Rossing, Thomas D. Acoustics of Eastern and Western Bells, Old and New. [from “Acoustical Society of America, 133rd Meeting Lay Language Papers,” available on-line], 1997, accessed 11 March 2005.
http://www.russianbells.com/acoustics/rossing.html
Sagall, Sabby. The People’s Opera. [from Issue 251 of Socialist Review, available on-line], April 2001, accessed 11 March 2005.
http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/sr251/sagall.htm
Tenorissimo website, accessed 15 March 2005.
http://www.tenorissimo.com/domingo/vhsopera.htm
The National Italian American Foundation website, accessed 6 March 2005.
http://www.niaf.org/research/report_columbus.asp
LEGAL DOCUMENTS
Fred Fisher, Inc. v. Dillingham, 298 Fed. 145 (United States District Court, Southern District New York, 1924).
SCORES
Puccini, Giacomo. Tosca. Libretto by Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica, New English Version by Joseph Machlis. New York and Italy: Ricordi (G. Schirmer).
SOUND RECORDINGS
Lilienstein, Saul (host). Commentaries on CD: Giacomo Puccini, Tosca. Washington National Opera (musical excerpts courtesy of Deutsche Grammophon). CD.
NEED MORE INFO?
www.dc-opera.org
Please contact the Education and Community Programs of Washington National Opera with any questions and/or requests for additional information at 202.448.3465 or education@dc-opera.org.
CREDITS
Contributors
Adina Williams
Graphic Design
LB Design
Special thanks to Dr. Ellen Miles,Curator of Painting and Sculpture and Dr. Anne Collins Goodyear, Assistant Curator of Prints and Drawings and staff at the National Portrait Gallery,Smithsonian Institution.
EDUCATION AND COMMUNITY PROGRAMS OF WASHINGTON NATIONAL OPERA ARE MADE POSSIBLE BY THE GENEROUS SUPPORT OF THESE FUNDERS:
as of March 7, 2005
$50,000 and above
Mr. and Mrs. John Pohanka
National Endowment for the Arts
$25,000 and above
Bank of America Foundation
Chevy Chase Bank
Fannie Mae Foundation
Prince Charitable Trust
$10,000 and above
Anonymous Foundation
Dominion
Jacob and Charlotte Lehrman Foundation
The Washington Post Company
Dr. and Mrs. Hans P. Black
$5,000 and above
International Humanities
TJX Foundation
Washington National Opera Women's Committee
$2,500 and above
Mr. Walter Arnheim
The Max and Victoria Dreyfus Foundation
Target Stores
The K.P. and Phoebe Tsolainos Foundation
Clarke-Winchcole Foundation
$1,000 and above
Paul and Annetta Himmelfarb Foundation
Horwitz Family Fund
Washington