Tosca - listening guide - part one.

Placido Domingo sings: Recondita armonia

Oh, how strange! I’m a painter, I paint (even revolutionary, but we’ll talk about that in the next listens). They ask me to paint a Madonna. Now, I’m with one: black hair, black eyes, big breasts. I make the Madonna blonde, blue eyes, small breasts. Because there’s a hidden harmony. I paint this one but think about my woman... What strange things! Oh, try explaining this to your ladies, for instance... let’s see if they believe it... (come on, everyone in Rome knows about Angelotti's breasts!).
Ps1: I’m intentionally including a rather mediocre version by Placido Domingo (if I had shown you the KING, you would have been convinced! And you would’ve pulled out your handkerchiefs too!)
Ps2: I swear that - for my whole life - the useless counterpoint ‘play with the infantry and leave the infantry alone’ annoys me. Like, really annoys me physically. I don’t know, maybe Puccini was an idiot, but it’s good for you to know...