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Tosca
Stanislavsky Opera
Saturday, October 30, 2004 at 8:00
Main Stage - $38
Sponsored by
Village Times Herald/
Times Beacon Record Newspapers
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Tosca was originally written by Victorien Sardou as a dramatic vehicle for Sarah Bernhardt, one of the 19th century’s most famous actresses. The play was enormously successful and was performed thousands of times. It also appealed to Puccini, Verdi and Franchetti as a possible source for a libretto. Franchetti secured the rights first, but eventually the rights were transferred to Puccini and the opera was a huge success. Sardou’s play virtually died after Bernhardt gave it up but Puccini’s opera continues a vigorous life more than a century after its premiere.
The opera is set in Rome in 1800 and opens with three crashing chords, which are always used to suggest Scarpia, the sinister chief of the secret police. He is the grim and elegant figure who epitomizes the reactionary forces of Italy in 1800 when the liberal forces considered Napoleon to be an apostle of freedom. The story of war, political prisoners, good and evil and, of course, love will be played out on the Staller stage by the Stanislavsky Opera Company. Established in 1918 as an opera studio of the famed Bolshoi Opera, it is considered one of the top Russian opera companies performing today. This fully-staged opera will be performed with live music, and sung in Italian with projected supertitles.
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