Tonight, after few days of silence, meanwhile Bibi and PoPoF are being set up, I want to share with you a feeling.
A couple of days ago I have been at the theatre to see the Opera of Tosca by Puccini. Set in a Rome subjugated under the dictatorial shadow of Mussolini, Tosca is the main character as well as the victim in this play. She is a very jealous and passionate woman but she truly trust her lover.
In the first act the events unfold in a sparkling and funny way, only to evolve in a spiraling , dramatic way in the last two acts. Tosca is a naive dreamer and this will be her undoing. For her lover’s sake, she will give her trust to her enemy: he makes her think that he will cancel the execution of her lover. He orders his men to simulate it. Despite killing him, she will find out that he never gave the order and her lover was executed. Her pain is unbearable and she decides to commit suicide by throwing herself from the tower of Castel Sant’Angelo.
The scene that, in my opinion, was best represented from all points of view (visual, singing, interpretative, scenographic) is the end of the second act: Tosca kills the oppressor, Sarpia, and she is about to go find her lover. Before that, she turns her eye to Sarpia.
So, in this scene the only lights are the ones of the candles that Tosca left by the bed where Sarpia’s dead body lies, then the light from the windows wich are cold and ghastly and the light that comes from the door where Tosca is heading to.
The lights lead the spectator’s eyes from the dead body to the doorway (thus the end of the act). The colours go from the pale candlelights, to the cold light from the windows ending with the warm light from the door so bright that seems blinding. Here I noticed a reference to Tosca’s naive ingenuity. The light is so blinding that it is reminiscent of the fires of hell. When Tosca is heading towards it she seems not to notice.