Muori, Donaldo damnato!

Nancy and I saw Puccini's Tosca at SF Opera tonight. I enjoyed it tremendously. My admiration for Puccini grows and grows. Verdi is God, but, with Tosca, Puccini approaches Verdi. And Puccini does it in such a different way. Puccini is so much more modern than Verdi. With Tosca, the music and the drama are inextricably intertwined in a way they never are in Verdi. As you listen to the music of Tosca, mirroring the dramatic action and accentuating the moods of the characters (so unlike the arias in Verdi, those complex and highly structured exercises in musical-beauty-existing-for-its-own-sake), you understand why every great movie has a great soundtrack.

And then, there is the thoroughly modern flavor of the role of Scarpia, the Chief of Police in Tosca, whose greatest pleasures in life are torture, rape, and endless, shameless, perfidious chicanery and manipulation. Scarpia is the prototype of every fascist, SS officer, and secret policeman of the 20th century. The entire opera can be viewed as an extended musical reflection on fascism and "The Resistance" to it. I don't think any other music has ever been written that captures as effectively as the End of Act II the desperate resolve to which a person can be driven when cornered by fascism. Tosca has agreed to surrender to Scarpia's lust in exchange for Scarpia freeing Tosca's lover, Cavaradossi. But, then the music grows dark, sad, and tortured as Tosca sees a knife lying on the table and realizes she has made a compact she can never keep. She conceals the knife in her clothing, and, as Scarpia triumphantly approaches to deflower her, plunges it into him, and then stands over him and exclaims "Questo è il bacio di Tosca! Ti suffoca il sangue? Muori, damnato! Muori! Muori! Muori!" ("There's Tosca's kiss for you! Are you choking on your blood? Die, damn you! Die! Die! Die!").

The only downside to the evening was the thoroughly predictable Director's Note in the program, which attempted in veiled terms to draw a comparison between Scarpia and Trump. One gets the impression that San Francisco views this year's production of Tosca as its own contribution to the Trump-as-Tyrant-being-assassinated genre. You could almost hear the audience members hissing to themselves "Muori, Donaldo damnato!" Even so, a thoroughly enjoyable evening with Puccini.