Preview: Marble City Opera Returns to St. John’s Cathedral for Puccini’s ‘Tosca’

 

 

Admittedly, realism in opera is something of an oxymoron. By its very nature, opera requires an embrace of the unrealistic—characters sing their roles, while time itself ebbs and flows to suit the drama of the moment. Of course, it is that beguiling abstraction, and its eye- and ear-catching presentation, that attracts people to the art form. 

Historically, realism throughout the arts as an increasingly desirable element began to be felt in the mid to late Nineteenth Century. Examples in the theatre include playwrights Anton Chekhov, Henrik Ibsen, and even the Russian naturalists like Maxim Gorky, that were influenced by the scenes of common people in common situations from realist painters like Daumier and Courbet from earlier decades.

Operatic realism, or verismo, found a home in Italian theatre beginning in 1890 with Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana (Rustic Chivalry) followed two years later by Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci (Clowns). Eventually, however, it was Giacomo Puccini who most successfully embraced the mature idea of melodramatic realism, notably in his 1896 La bohème followed by Tosca in 1900. It was Tosca that plumbed the depths of realistic human emotions: romantic passion, jealousy, blackmail, and murder amid a backdrop of political intrigue. Tosca, though, also stands out in one important way—its scenes were set in Rome locations that actually existed, and, miraculously, still do.

Visitors to Rome’s popular Piazza Navona have only to stroll a block or two south to the Corso Vittorio Emanuele II where they’ll find a beautiful basilica church dating from the early Baroque, the Sant’Andrea della Valle, known for a frescoed dome and a lavishly decorated vault ceiling. Take in this site and you’ve found Puccini’s inspiration for Tosca’s Act I.

The setting for Act II of Tosca is just a five-minute stroll away from the Sant’Andrea della Valle. Past a plethora of shops and cafes, and plazas filled with merchandise carts and stalls, one can find the Renaissance-era Palazzo Farnese, currently the site of the French embassy. In the opera, it is the location of the sadistic and lecherous Baron Scarpia’s apartment. 

Then, three-quarters of a mile to the northwest is the historic Castel Sant’Angelo, the location for Act III’s prison scene.

Of course, performing Tosca today in its actual inspired locations in Rome would be laughably impractical, if not impossible, even without the issue of Covid-19 precautions and closures. However, Marble City Opera, known for mounting productions in unusual and intriguing non-theatrical locations since its founding in 2013, has chosen an equally unique alternative for its upcoming Tosca—the three acts will be staged in three locations within downtown’s St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral. This marks the third MCO production staged at St. John’s, the last being Puccini’s one-act, Suor Angelica, two years ago in 2019. Act I will take place in the nave of St. John’s. The Act II location of Scarpia’s apartment is being staged in the church’s Great Hall. The Act III prison roof scene will go outside into St. John’s gray stone courtyard.

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