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TOSCA |
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Director:
Benoît Jacquot
Screenplay: Jacquot, after the libretto of Puccini's opera.
Cast: Floria Tosca: Angela Gheorghiu
Mario Cavaradossi: Roberta Alagna
Baron Scarpia: Ruggero Raimondi
Music: Antonio Pappano conducts the Orchestra and Chorus of the Royal
Opera House, Covent Garden.
Running time: 120 minutes
Production: France/England/Italy/Germany, 2001
Rating: Not rated
Gauge: 35mm (color and B&W)
Language: Italian
Distributor: Avatar Films
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"The
virtues of Tosca have been debated since it was first staged in 1900.
Is it tragedy or melodrama, art or kitsch? By pouring so much passion
onto the screen, Jacquot makes such questions seem niggling. However
you care to classify this Tosca, it's amazing. The famous arias .
. . are so thrillingly felt that the screen seems to tremble."
Peter Rainer, New York Magazine. |
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Jacquot agreed
to make a film based on Puccini’s tragic opera on one condition:
that it be a film and not a filmed opera. With vertiginous crane
shots, glamorous close-ups and top-notch acting, his adaptation
proves to be a powerful cinematic experience. Shot on a sound stage,
the minimalist sets are bathed in pools of light and surrounded
by an inky darkness from which characters emerge and to which they
return. The story, set in Rome in 1800, is followed faithfully:
Mario falls afoul of the dastardly Baron Scarpia who tricks Mario’s
lover, Tosca, into betraying him. With Mario imprisoned, Scarpia
tries to obtain sexual favors from Tosca in exchange for a promise
to let Mario escape. Tosca agrees. Then, once Scarpia has given
orders to Mario’s guards, she murders him. But Mario’s
mock execution turns out to be real and Tosca, in despair, throws
herself to her death. Opera stars Gheorghiu, Alagna and Raimondi
sing with full-blooded vigor, while Jacquot gives a dreamy, surreal
slant to the tragedy by intercutting low-key, black-and-white documentary
footage of the studio recording sessions, with the stars in their
street clothes singing from behind music stands, as well as grainy,
impressionistic, hand-held shots of the story’s real-life locations
in Rome.
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| PHOTO Avatar
Films |
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