Giacomo Puccini
Tosca

"Music is the chosen homeland of those who know how to abstract themselves from the world's miseries" G. Puccini

Lyrical: poetry through which the most delicate sentiments of the soul are expressed, it is the ultimate perfection of what concerns the meaning of Music, nothing is comparable to it. Fundamental structural forms in lyric are the vocal expressionistic capacity in melodrama and the narrative of opera to be followed through the libretto which for Tosca was entrusted to the duo Illica (skeletal sketch playwright) and Giocosa (author transforming text into verses with the task of indiscriminately prioritizing literary and musical reasons) and the "doge" Puccini had to give his approval.

The Family boasted a generation of master musicians, Puccini was one of the greatest composers of Lyric - Operatic Music between the '800 and the '900. A great admirer of Richard Wagner, he dedicated himself to theater after being dazzled by the representation of "Aida" by Giuseppe Verdi, he deeply believed in the psychological-emotional relationship between the spectator and the theatrical representation and was the first manipulator par excellence of international melodrama because the music had to adapt to any translation in any language of the world, that is, it had to belong to everyone. Born in Lucca, he lived in Torre del Lago, Tuscany was his inspiring land (but also of many other Poets and Artists), in fact, it was here that his four most successful operas were created: the "Bohème" (concentrated of dramaturgy), the "Tosca" (melodrama), "Madame Butterfly" (exotic), "La Fanciulla del West" (western à nte-lìtteram) and an impeccable career.

"Tosca" is a desperate and overwhelming, ingenious and moving opera, composed in three acts and the cd version I chose is the one represented by the Orchestra and Chorus of Teatro alla Scala in Milan, conductor De Sabata, vocal interpreters "the blue nightingale" Maria Callas (soprano), Giuseppe Di Stefano (tenor), Tito Gobbi (baritone), indescribable, unsurpassable, otherworldly voices, full of warm pathos and rich in nuances, that says it all.

The plot: the meeting in church of Mario, a painter who is venturing in a portrait of Mary Magdalene, with the revolutionary Angelotti, escaped from prison and rushed to take refuge in the family chapel. Tosca, devoted and jealous of her lover painter, goes to visit him in church and, struck by his embarrassment, believes there is another woman. Reassured by her lover, she leaves, allowing the two patriots to depart. Having arrived in the church on the trail of the fugitive, the chief of police Scarpia understands the truth and follows Tosca so that she will lead him to Mario and the fugitive. Arrested, Mario is interrogated by Scarpia and denies knowing the patriot. Then he is tortured, Tosca enters the room and hearing her lover screaming, she betrays the secret. Meanwhile, voices announce the victory of Napoleon Bonaparte. Mario cries freedom and instead is dragged to jail. The fate is in Tosca’s hands, Scarpia's proposal, who didn't want money but to spend one night with her, was to allow a safe-conduct, so she gives in to save Mario; he lunges at Tosca and she stabs him to death. Meanwhile, Mario awaits execution; Tosca arrives and reveals to him that she obtained a safe-conduct from Scarpia with the promise of a mock execution. But the orders from the chief of police were quite the opposite and Mario is shot dead, so desperate from the unbearable pain, Tosca kills herself by throwing herself from the walls.

This review I dedicate to my father, a proud alpine whose heart was shaped by love for Puccini's works, that heart which one day stopped beating, goodbye dad, now your heart lives in mine.