Soundtrack
Among the numerous attempts to bring grand opera to the screen, with notable exceptions (Ingmar Bergman's Magic Flute), there are few unqualified successes. This long-standing inclination has met a welcome reversal of fortune with a couple of recent works, including this fine version of Giacomo Pucinni's Tosca. Visually stunning, emotionally involving, and musically more than holding its own, Benoît Jacquot's adaptation is not so much a translation to the screen as a transformation of traditional live opera to the art of film. The two mediums have such different strengths that to compare a stage production of Tosca to this film is to do justice to neither. Rather than resembling a filmed opera production, the director has taken top world class opera singers (Angela Gheorghiu, Roberto Alagna and Ruggero Raimondi), a well known Italian favorite, blended them with some exteriors and a splash of rehearsal scenes to produce two hours of great film. The result is a moving and mesmerizing experience.
Benoit's extensive use of screen-filling close ups, vivid colors of blood red, fiery orange, and an uncluttered set design affords an immediacy that could only be done with film. The center stage, fly-on-the-curtain view, mixed with some dazzling overhead shots, the restrained use of snippets from the rehearsal hall in black and white, and dissolves to exterior locations, provide a perspective that accentuates the spectacle and drives the drama. The occasional forays outdoors are seen in grainy texture and hyper color but without any players, adding connective tissue and texture.
The story revolves around raven-haired, passionate beauty Tosca, Mario, her lover, and the evil and powerful Scarpia, who stops at nothing to satisfy his corporeal desires. Mario is a painter who has helped an imprisoned rebel to escape. Tosca becomes jealous of a lovely blonde, whose likeness Mario has painted as he observed her at prayer in the chapel. The reason for the mysterious woman's daily visits to the chapel are in reality a cover to aid her brother, the escaped rebel. Scarpia uses Tosca's inclination toward jealousy to set up betrayal and treachery for them all.
The intensity of the close-ups over the flawless sound track, together with careful subtitling, brings the humanity to the surface. Ruggero Raimondi, with his jagged good looks, makes a magnificent Scarpia. As the camera captures the rich black brocade of his garment and contrasts it with the long train of Tosca's blood red gown in a whirlpool from above as he closes in on her, the two hours (shorter by nearly an hour from most staging) fly.
It is ultimately the voices that drive opera and the magnificent cast does not disappoint. However, because Benoit is primarily a filmmaker, the focus is shifted in that direction to wonderful effect. With all the elements of a great dramatic story: love, passion, honor, jealousy, loyalty, and all the elements of great opera: love, passion, honor, voice and music, Tosca is sure fire. The haunting ethereal scene from high above the city after Tosca has bestowed her deadly kiss on Scarpia carries the suggestion of all the ghosts of operatic tragedy.
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