Happy B-Day, Tosca

Giacomo Puccini's Tosca is back -- this time on the silver screen. Puccini's melodramatic opera, based on the French-language play La Tosca Victorien Sardou, is celebrating its 110th birthday by touring the country in a filmed version. There may not be sexy teenaged vampires in this movie, but there’s still...

By Robrt L. Pela

September 23, 2010

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Giacomo Puccini's Tosca is back -- this time on the silver screen. Puccini's melodramatic opera, based on the French-language play La Tosca Victorien Sardou, is celebrating its 110th birthday by touring the country in a filmed version. There may not be sexy teenaged vampires in this movie, but there’s still plenty of blood and overwrought romance.

Set in Rome in 1800, the opera also contains torture, murder, and suicide as well as some of Puccini's best-known arias, in a tale of rape, murder, and warring political factions. Tosca remains one of the most frequently performed operas in the world. It’s structured as a through-composed work, and its new film translation of a live performance in Genoa, Italy is heralded as superb.

Filmed in June 2010 at the Teatro Carlo Felice and sung in Italian with English subtitles, Tosca has a running time just less than two hours. The opera will show at several Valley Harkins Theatres.
Thu., Sept. 23, 2010

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