1/ Last time TOSCA was webcast I commented on how that production and this one had both been recently shown and this one (by Zeffirelli) was better. Well it is, and here it is again. TOSCA, an opera about an opera diva, is the ultimate in Verismo, with its immediate background
https://twitter.com/metopera/status/1362537518663675907
2/ being the Battle of Marengo on June 14, 1800; the opera received its world premiere a century later.
The cast holdover from the earlier performance (1978/1985) is Cornell MacNeil as Baron Scarpia, ruthless police chief of freshly counter-revolutionary Rome in the employ of
The cast holdover from the earlier performance (1978/1985) is Cornell MacNeil as Baron Scarpia, ruthless police chief of freshly counter-revolutionary Rome in the employ of
3/ the royal house of Naples. MacNeil sounded a little fresher in ‘78 (he had made his Met debut in ‘59), but by ‘85, with experience and Zeffirelli’s direction, his acting was much better, and his voice little diminished for purposes of this role.
4/ He is joined by soprano Hildegard Behrens (recently our WALKÜRE Brünnhilde - but she had a zone of expertise in Puccini as well, having made her Met debut in IL TABARRO) as Floria Tosca, and Placido Domingo as Cavaradossi, her revolutionary cavalier’.
5/ Completing the star line-up of singers and director, Giuseppe Sinopoli conducts.
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