Giacomo Puccini sees the play Tosca by Victorien Sardou in Milan in 1889 with the leading actress of the moment, Sarah Bernhardt. The sensational effects of Victorien Sardou's melodrama about the Roman diva and her beloved artist who in Rome around 1800 fall victim to the authoritarian regime of police commissioner Scarpia, fascinate the composer. He sees the play again in Firenze and decides in November 1895 to compose an opera based on it. The Roman setting and atmosphere seem to him moreover to offer a wealth of musical opportunities.
The brutal murder of Pasolini and the murky role of the young Giuseppe Pelosi form an important subplot in Rafael R. Villalobos's staging of Tosca. It is less far-fetched than it seems at first glance, at least if it is developed as consistently and with logical boldness as this director does. He anchors his direction to motifs that appear in the opera: Rome, sadomasochism, resistance to a dominant regime, freedom of the artist. The artist Pier Paolo Pasolini, as an openly visible representative of the gay scene, became a victim of homophobic hate in 1975 on the beach of Ostia. In the director's view, an equally gruesome crime of sadistic abuse of power as the cruelty to which Cavaradossi and Tosca fall prey in historical Rome.
In each act, the references to the gay world are therefore unmistakably present. Yet they usually do not prevent one from grasping the essence of the veristic, passionate drama of Puccini's Tosca. In the first act, in the church Sant' Andrea della Valle, where Cavaradossi paints the portrait of Maria Magdalena and the Te Deum is sung, you cannot escape the altar boys and immediately the "boundary-crossing" tendencies of the sacristan. Before the beginning of the second act, director Rafael R. Villalobos provides an additional scene in the box with a long dialogue between Pasolini and his friend, which can be interpreted as a kind of manifesto of his life attitude as an artist and gentle man, a stark contrast to the brutal and frightening nature of the second act. Thanks to the acting of the Scarpia and Tosca performers, the tension is raised chillingly, especially from Vissi d'arte, vissi d'amore, the moment when Tosca has made her decision that Scarpia's kiss becomes his death kiss. In this act, the gay scene is sometimes depicted with too much eagerness and too explicitly, but it remains in tune with the chosen vision. The final image of the third act of Tosca's "dying" is such a poetic image that it can hardly leave one unmoved. In that sense too, it remains true to Pasolini, certainly with the quotation: "I am indeed an unbeliever, but I am an unbeliever who has a longing for faith". This quotation and indeed also other historical facts are often – again meaningfully – projected as a kind of "subtext" between the scenes.
Successful total spectacle
The fairly abstract set with an evocation of church arches depicts the interior of the church in the first act. The painting that Cavaradossi is working on is lowered into it and the image of the Madonna is not lacking. In Scarpia's palace hall, the arches are filled with nude portraits. In the third act, it is especially the lighting that makes the ominous emptiness even more threatening. Leah Hawkins plays her image of a diva beautifully from her appearance in the church. Her acting performance is particularly convincing, her vocal performance somewhat less so. With too much force, the voice is sometimes marred by an ugly throat sound or vibrato and the famous Vissi d'arte could have had more nuance. But as a dramatic soprano she provides a moving interpretation right through to the chilling finale. The same goes for Lucio Gallo. As Scarpia, cruelty suits him, but the vocal power shows some wear here and there. Stefano La Colla, with his radiant tenor voice, is a convincing Cavaradossi, who takes an touching leave of life and love in E lucevan le stelle. Conductor Jordan de Souza stimulates the orchestra to refinement and detail to realize Puccini's particularly richly colored orchestration, making the performance an absolutely impressive total spectacle.
