Tosca (2001) Reviews

• A Night at the Opera ... (SPOILERS)

  kaaber-22002-09-15

  I just came back from seeing "Tosca", and I am completely enchanted. Director Jacquot manages to puzzle, perplex and tease us and all the while he presents the opera in a version that will be a tough act to follow. As for the puzzlement, perplexing and teasing, Jacquot cuts in between the studio recording (in black and white) and makes no real attempt to conceal the fact that the grandiose opera scenes are play back: on two occasions, he permits the singers to speak their lines above their own recorded singing. The most amazing trick, however, is the opening of act III: Mario Cavaradossi, imprisoned in Castel San Angelo, recollects former scenes with Tosca - backwards! They walk backwards, kiss backwards, pray backwards. It has a humorous effect, as if the director wanted to avoid any emotional absorption in the story - and the story is in fact very touching at this point. And then he also completely abandons any cinematic rhythm, visually. In act I, during the duet between Tosca and Scarpia, the cameraman has been sent off to lunch, presumably, for the camera remains absolutely dead still - this however, is juxtaposed with a quadruple arc (is that the right word?) in Scarpia's great aria. The camera swirls in circles around the actor (Ruggiero), as we know it from the opening of Forman's "Hair" - only "Tosca" has FOUR full circles, if I counted right. In this aria, we also see a very daring interpretation, as Scarpia (Ruggiero), thinking of Tosca, has a nice little transport of a very sexual nature. It is a close-up, cutting the singer off above the waistline, thank God - but Ruggiero has some very convincing and suggestive acting in this scene. But the real scoop is the very end (and this is where the spoiler comes!). When the entire drama is played out, when Scarpia has received "The kiss of Tosca" - a knife in the belly - and when Cavaradossi has been shot and Tosca has taken a giant leap into the Tiber, Jacquot takes us back to the black and white studio recording. We see the lovely diva following the last, violent chords of the score, the music stops - and then Angela Gheorghiu makes a gesture as if to say: "Well, that's that. We pulled it off". This must be seen, it can't be explained properly, but it puts the whole grand opera into perspective in quite a wonderful way. And Gheorghiu, by the way, must be the most lovely Tosca imaginable. This film is must for all opera freaks, and everybody else may begin freaking here.

  More

• Hot & Spicy, Erotic & Creamy

  se7en452002-12-21

  My initial reaction to this movie was negative. It took me a while to get used to the technique of showing the singers, musicians and the conductor and then rapidly splicing footage of the singers performing in costume on the set of the opera. However, I think this experiment gradually begins to weave a spell over the audience (consider what Lawrence Olivier did with his film of "HENRY V"). The artificial world of theatre and opera explodes into a reality filled with excitement and vitality. The orchestra bursts into a throbbing overture that hints at the turmoil that bubbles at the tragic heart of Puccini's opera. Antonio Pappano conducts like a man possessed, he fights and wrestles the score to fiery heights and the music rises with a sweaty passion. Roberto Alagna sings and acts the role of Cavaradossi with enough conviction, although Placido Domingo did an electrifying job for Giofranco De Bosio in the 1976 movie. Alagna may not have the acting ability of Domingo but he certainly more than makes up for it in the singing department. His natural charisma also shines through in the close-ups that are used frequently to heighten psychological tension. Ruggero Raimondi plays the part of Scarpia with venom and overtones of violent malice. At times he almost resembles a rapist stalking his next victim. There are shades of his magnificent portrayal of the decadent Don Giovanni (remember the Joseph Losey film?), for example, when he's at the dinner table we see Scarpia admiring his own smirking reflection in the glinting knife. His aria, in this scene, is about how he devours women until his appetite is sated. He proudly boasts about his varied taste in differnt kinds of females and the whole aria is very sinister and disturbing. His acting is splendid and his singing voice is still virile and strong. Tosca, sung and acted by the earthy Angela Gheorghiu, is first seen as almost bloodless. She is wearing a pale yellow dress and there's no trace of make-up on her anxious face. We can see insecurity and jealousy lined in her face and eyes. She peeks around like a hunted animal which has lost the will to live. This is the way Puccini wrote the part for his heroine and this superb singer delivers a haunting performance. In the latter sections of the opera we see her in a blood-red dress that swirls behind her like a crimson river. Now her eyes are raging black coals that glint with fire and her ruby lips shine with lust. Her cheeks are creamy and flushed and her heaving breast indicates the trembling fear that courses through her lascivious body. Her scene with Scarpia is erotic, the fire leaps and strange shadows dance around the claustrophobic room. This whole scene is extremely erotic, there is a definite sexual spark between the snake-like Scarpia and the radiant sexiness of Tosca. Her voice is tinged with a smouldering huskiness. The climax, on the top of the gothic castle is beautifully lit, Tosca's red dress still glows and her face has a hue of cold blue (the lighting in this section would please fans who enjoy the works of Mario Bava or Dario Argento). This time we see the tragic frailty in Tosca's eyes, there are hints of suspicion and fear and the close-ups, once again, are very effective in conveying her emotional state. This film is a very good example of opera being translated over into Art House Cinemas and the experiment of inter-cutting footage of singers in the theatre and the film sets is by-and-large successful and will bear repeated viewings. One hopes more adaptations will follow and thus allow opera the freedom to reach new venues. Seek out this pulsating film and allow your emotions to run riot with passion and excitement.

  More

• An Opera Film By A Director Who Hates Opera!?!

  dwingrove2002-07-26

  Given the prohibitive costs of shooting and marketing a film - any film, on any subject - any director rash enough to try a "filmed opera" faces a double challenge. It is no longer enough to make an Opera Film: the sort popular in Italy in the 40s and 50s, when opera still enjoyed a wide audience. It is now necessary to make an Opera Film For People Who Hate Opera: one with enough populist appeal to win over millions of film-goers who are either indifferent to opera or can't bear it. It's a well-nigh impossible trick, and only a handful of directors have come anywhere close to pulling it off. Still, I defy even the most tone-deaf of operaphobes to watch Powell and Pressburger's 1951 Tales of Hoffmann or Losey's 1979 Don Giovanni or Zeffirelli's 1982 La Traviata, and not adore every moment! As for Benoit Jacquot's new film of Tosca...well, he seems to have gone one better than all the others, and turned out the first-ever Opera Movie By A Director Who Obviously Hates Opera, So Why Did He Bother In The First Place? With its thunderous blood-and-sex soaked libretto and romantically hysterical score, Giacomo Puccini's Tosca is perhaps the greatest melodrama - spoken or sung - ever to hit the stage. As TS Eliot once wrote of a novel by Wilkie Collins; "It has no merit beyond melodrama, but it has every merit that melodrama can have." No piece of musical theatre on earth is less suited to the odious cod-Brechtian 'distancing devices' that Jacquot employs in his deluded attempts to seem avant-garde. If you cannot wallow in the heart-thumpingly overwrought melodramatics of Tosca, you should not go near them at all. So what can be the logic of splicing in black-and-white footage of the high-priced cast as they record the vocal score? Or those awful jiggly, grainy shots of those monuments in Rome where the action takes place? Or forcing Roberto Alagna and Angela Gheorgiu - the reigning Golden Couple on the international opera scene - to speak the dialogue 'live' while singing it on the soundtrack? This sort of hollow trickery can only outrage opera fans, while leaving the vast majority of the public as bewildered as they ever were. So Jacquot is both a Philistine and a moron, and his film should be an out-and-out disaster BUT...lacking even the courage of his own puny convictions, most of the time he forgets to be Post-Modern and just gives us the melodrama straight. The result is nothing short of miraculous. As Floria Tosca, an opera diva struggling to save her lover from the clutches of an evil Chief of Police, Angela Gheorghiu is - vocally and dramatically - a rival to our memory of Maria Callas. With her torrent of raven hair, triumphal cheekbones and sulphurous eyes, her screen presence is an echo of Sigourney Weaver. A pity that her most erotic love interest is not the romantic and revolutionary painter Mario Cavaradossi. (Roberto Alagna, aka Mr. Gheorghiu, lags far behind his wife in vocal skills and shows not the faintest sign of talent as an actor.) Rather, it is the evil police chief Baron Scarpia who deserves to win her heart. Not only a veteran of opera films - including Losey's sumptuous Don Giovanni - Ruggero Raimondi has also acted 'straight' roles, notably as a dotty French nobleman obsessed with immortality in the 1983 Alain Resnais film La Vie Est Un Roman. With his haggard eyes and glittering black greatcoat, Raimondi has an almost vampiric quality. Perhaps the sexiest, most seductive screen villain since Basil Rathbone. And so - irony of ironies - this Opera Film By A Director Who Hates Opera turns out to be a near-classic, a close rival to Zeffirelli or Losey or Powell-Pressburger. Let's just hope that nobody ever gives Jacquot another opera to direct. Next time, he might really wreck it! Let's hope, on her next project, that Angela Gheorghiu wields her ever-increasing clout and hires a film-maker who actually knows what opera is. Isn't Gerard Corbiau in need of a job? Now that I'd love to see. David Melville

  More

• Gheorghiu's On Fire!

  lenneth20002004-09-30

  Although many may dislike this film and its direction, I found that I was really moved and excited by it. I can see how certain aspects of this film may not be to everybody's taste(for example the dodgy outside scenes and the black and white orchestra footage)but to be honest, what does it matter when you have a singer with as beautiful a voice as Angela Gheorghiu! Roberto Alagna's Cavaradossi was a bit wet and pathetic but that could just have been the part. However, Ruggero Raimondi was a truly frightening Scarpia and even when filmed in the recording studio you can see the fire and anger which, in my opinion, is a such a key part of Scarpia's personality. I thought the direction was simple but quite effective at times. I really disliked the outside footage because i felt it wasn't really necessary although it could be a device used to show the seedy side of the situation the characters are in. I found that the close-ups gave you the opportunity to see deep into the personalities of the characters in a way that you can't in an opera house due to the distance between stage and audience. To compare it with another, I have seen parts of Franco Zeffirelli's Tosca staged at ROH in the 60s starring Maria Callas and Tito Gobbi and i can say without doubt that although Callas may have been an exceptional performer, her voice is nothing compared with Angela Gheorghiu-so please, please watch it to have the opportunity to hear the most beautiful voice in the world!

  More

• Lot of romanticism, full dramatic, it's Puccini!

  gbay2003-02-24

  There's not so many things I can say about it. My favorite opera because of the dramatic and romantic story with the incredible romantic music of Puccini, three strong characters create a matchless atmosphere. Ruggero Raimondi is excellent with his performances on vocal and acting, Angela Gheorghiu have a "dolce" voice and she uses her face good enough but she uses her body some exaggerated in some parts, Raimondi and Gheorghiu are also very suitable physically for unmerciful Scarpia and beautiful Floria Tosca. Roberto Alagna's vocal performance is good. A movie good enough for who loves opera and Puccini, not a perfect directing but generally i liked the movie maybe because of the influence of Puccini's music with some memorable scenes like Scarpia's aria and praying at the end of the first act.

  More