More than 2,200 years after the ancient Roman playwright Titus Maccius Plautus wrote Miles Gloriosus, his character lives on in Stephen Sondheim's 1962 musical entitled A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Rome has certainly left its musical imprint on world culture. Ottorino Resphigi's trilogy of symphonic poems -- Fountains of Rome (1916), Pines of Rome (1924), and Roman Festivals (1928) -- evoke strong images in a listener's mind, as do the following three popular songs.
More than a dozen operas have been set in Rome:
- Claudio Monteverdi's opera, L'Incoronazione di Poppea, was first performed in Venice in 1643.
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera, La Clemenza di Tito, was first performed in Prague in 1791.
- Gaspare Spontini's opera, La Vestale, premiered in Paris in 1807.
- Hector Berlioz's opera, Benvenuto Cellini, was first performed in Paris in 1838.
- Saverio Mercadante's opera, La Vestale, was first performed in Naples in 1840.
- Richard Wagner's opera, Rienzi, premiered in Dresden in 1842.
- Gaetano Donizetti's comic opera, Don Pasquale, was first performed in Paris in 1843.
- Jules Massenet's opera, Roma, was first performed in Monaco in 1912.
- Hans Pfitzner's opera, Palestrina, was first performed in Munich in 1917.
- Arrigo Boito's opera, Nerone, premiered posthumously at La Scala in 1924.
- Pietro Mascagni's opera, Nerone, was first performed at La Scala in 1935.
- Benjamin Britten's opera, The Rape of Lucretia, was first performed at Glyndebourne in 1946.
The San Francisco Opera recently unveiled a new production of Tosca handsomely designed by Robert Innes Hopkins and directed by Shawna Lucey which, at the very least, signals that it is eminently rentable. Prior to this season, the company has performed Tosca 175 times over the course of 38 seasons. It's a safe assumption that it will get plenty of mileage from its new sets and costumes.
What makes this production of Tosca especially interesting is not so much the period in which its costumes were worn but the period in which we are now living. After seeing enough productions of Puccini's opera, it's easy to settle into its musical riches and ignore the fact that Baron Scarpia (like Donald Trump, Harvey Weinstein, Eric Schneiderman, and numerous powerful figures who have fallen from grace in recent years) is not just a sadistic scumbag, but a relentlessly corrupt sexual predator whose words mirror his personality. As he confesses:
"For myself, the violent conquest has stronger relish than the soft surrender. I take no delight in sighs or vows exchanged at misty lunar dawn. I know not how to draw harmony from guitars or horoscopes from flowers, nor am I apt at dalliance or cooing like the turtle dove. I crave. I pursue the craved thing, sate myself, cast it by, and seek new bait. God made diverse beauties as he made diverse wines and, of these God-like works, I mean to taste my full."
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| Soprano Carmen Giannattasio stars in the San Francisco Opera's new production of Tosca (Photo by: Cory Weaver) |
"Yes, they say that I am venal, but it is not for money that I will sell myself to beautiful women. I want other recompense if I am to betray my oath of office. I have waited for this hour. Already in the past I burned with passion for the diva, but tonight I have beheld you in a new role I had not seen before. Those tears of yours were lava to my senses and that fierce hatred which your eyes shot at me only fanned the fire in my blood. Supple as a leopard, you enrapt your lover. In that instant I vowed you would be mine! Mine! Yes, I will have you."
A new piece of stage business begins during the "Te Deum" at the end of Act I as the Marchesa Attavanti spots her fan in Scarpia's hand, runs center stage, and struggles to grab it from him. Once she succeeds, she runs toward the church's exit (only to be brusquely escorted out by one of Scarpia's henchmen). As Act II opens, she appears in Scarpia's office in the Palazzo Farnese crying, humiliated, and trying to wipe her face while Scarpia is buttoning up his pants. Is it possible that the Marchesa has just received an unwelcome gift in the form a pearl necklace from the Chief of Police? In her Director's Note, Lucey writes:
“Baron Scarpia is a self-made man whose sadistic sexual proclivities and lust for power demolish the lives and dignity of every life he touches. With Napoleon and his unstoppable forces bearing down on a Rome without the protection of the Pope, he has no time or tolerance for artsy idealists who don’t understand that someone must preserve law and order. Grand opera means grand tragedies. But in a world where corrupt dealings decay civic institutions, torture is fair and legal, and the Church colludes with tyrants for self-preservation, a woman fights back against her fate and the damning crush of this society. Our main three characters become ensnared in the horrible net of treachery, intrigues, lies, moral turpitude, and fraudulence that extinguishes them all. Tosca is a piece for today like almost never before.”
“The task of creating a new production of a beloved opera and extremely significant title for San Francisco Opera is one we have joyfully and seriously taken on. When designer Robert Innes Hopkins and I began a few years ago to discuss Puccini’s masterpiece, we were struck again and again by the pervasive corruption endemic to Tosca’s Rome. It is the kind of odious corruption like mold-producing water damage that rots from within until structures collapse. How does a moral, ethical person navigate a world where institutions tasked with protecting the common good have been usurped to serve the nefarious desires of unchecked tyrants? Do you compromise in small ways daily for survival until your own personal integrity is shredded into nonexistence? When do you stand up and fight back?”
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| Brian Jagde (Cavaradossi) and Hadleigh Adams (Angelotti) in Act I of Puccini's Tosca (Photo by: Cory Weaver) |
The highlight of most Tosca productions involves the diva's struggle to avoid being raped by Scarpia. Unlike many stagings (in which Tosca spots the knife on Scarpia's dinner tray, grabs it, and hides it behind her back as Scarpia approaches), in this new production she pulls a dagger off of a decorative shield that has just been brought into the room and holds the weapon within the folds of material in the front of her gown so that she can thrust it upward as Puccini's villain grabs her.
It's interesting to note that, in this new staging, Scarpia seems to have a nervous tic which involves reaching for the buttons on the waistline of his pants whenever a woman is within reach. That little tic comes in handy, however, after Tosca stabs him and he falls to the floor (where the baritone can easily release the plug on the costume's hidden bag of blood).
Other gimmicks include the use of some shadow play seen through an opaque glass window as Cavaradossi is tortured (this gives the audience a better hint of some of the sadistic devices at Scarpia's disposal). Unfortunately, I found the placement of the fatal dagger on the shield made for a less dramatic moment when Tosca discovered the weapon which could deliver her from Scarpia's evil.
Another disappointment came shortly after Scarpia died, as Tosca places two candlesticks by his body. At that moment, the score indicates a tenor drum which, though coming from a distance, is enough to rattle Tosca's nerves and hasten her exit from the murder scene. Although I was seated in Row H of the orchestra section, I never heard the drum (the press office informs me that the off-stage percussion for this production is located behind a lot of scenery, which might have muffled the effect).
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| Brian Jagde as Mario Cavaradossi in the San Francisco Opera's new production of Tosca (Photo by: Cory Weaver) |
With Leo Hussain conducting, the performance benefited immensely from Brian Jagde's full-throated and beautifully shaded portrayal of Cavaradossi. Making her role debut, Carmen Giannattasio was a petite and appropriately petulant diva with voice to spare. Hadleigh Adams was an impassioned and forceful Angelotti with veteran Dale Travis as a fussy Sacristan. The one big surprise was that, while vocally strong as Scarpia, Scott Hendricks seemed to disappear into the churchgoing crowd late in Act I.
After attending performances of Tosca for more than half a century, I was delighted to learn a piece of trivia I had either forgotten or never fully understood. The setting for Act III, Rome's famed Castel Sant'Angelo, was originally commissioned by the Roman Emperor Hadrian (Publius Aelius Hadrianus), who died on July 10, 138 AD at the age of 62.
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Not only does Roman architecture inspire millions of tourists who flock to the Colosseum with visions of gladiators dancing in their heads, some have never forgotten the cinematic spectacles of Elizabeth Taylor's arrival in Rome during 1963's Cleopatra; Commodus's triumphal return to Rome in 1964's The Fall of the Roman Empire; and the battle between Russell Crowe and Joaquin Phoenix in 2000's Gladiator.With this year's San Francisco Olympians Festival dedicated to deities from Roman mythology, festival founder Stuart Bousel made an interesting artistic decision by elevating Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, and Mark Antony to the level of cultural gods as a result of the celebrity status they earned posthumously. While Gaius Julius Caesar is probably best known today thanks to Shakespeare’s 1599 depiction of his brutal death on the floor of the Roman Senate, George Frideric Handel’s opera, Giulio Cesare in Egitto (1724), is a staple of the baroque repertoire.
Written in 1898, George Bernard Shaw’s play, Caesar and Cleopatra, premiered on October 30, 1906 at the New Amsterdam Theatre in New York; another production opened in London at the Savoy Theatre the following year. In 1968, I attended a performance at the Colonial Theatre in Boston of the ill-fated musical adaptation of Shaw's play entitled Her First Roman (starring Richard Kiley as Caesar, Leslie Uggams as Cleopatra, and Claudia McNeil as Ftatateeta).
From 1957-1975, the Forum of the Twelve Caesars in Rockefeller Center was one of New York's most prestigious restaurants. Founded in 1959, Little Caesars has grown to become the third-largest pizza chain in the United States. Since 1966, Caesar's Palace has been a landmark hotel on the Las Vegas Strip. The Italian Line even named two of its passenger ships in Caesar’s honor.
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| SS Giulio Cesare (1922-1944) |
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| MS Giulio Cesare (1951-1973) |
Although the Ides of March are remembered every year as the day of Caesar's brutal death in 44 BC, playwright Allison Page offered a radically different take on his demise in her one-act play entitled Julius Caesar or Orange Julius, which received a reading during this year's San Francisco Olympians Festival.
Set in a suburban shopping mall that has steadily been losing tenants to online retailers like Amazon.com, the action centers around the mall’s last remaining smoothie stand. When its aging manager, Frank (Eric Berglund), suddenly retires, a replacement must be found on short notice. Well aware that the mall’s financial future is in severe jeopardy (and, since none of the employees like her, anyway), Jean from Corporate (Alice Highman) decides to “promote from within” by giving a clueless teenager named Julius (Sam Wessels) a trial run as the smoothie stand’s new manager. The young man's questionable social skills (and arbitrary decisions when it comes to scheduling his employees' shifts) quickly cause friction among his co-workers and fellow mall workers who feel betrayed by their former friend.
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| Poster art by Ashley Kea Ramos for Allison Page's Orange Julius |
Jimbo (Michael Houston) is probably the most naive and incredibly dumb survivor of the mall's current layoff climate. Good natured and incredibly laid back, he tends to look on the bright side of things despite his lack of marketable skills or outside interests. Kat (Alissa Magrill) is a teenage bundle of rage. The two most conflicted employees, however, are Glenn (Abigail Henderson) and her close friend, Briana (Alejandra Wahl).
Briana has just taken a pregnancy test and received some life-changing news. Terrified by her new reality, she is financially and emotionally unprepared to handle a pregnancy. Without any money to pay for an abortion (and no idea where to turn for help), she’s thankful that Glenn is there to offer a sympathetic shoulder. Despite taking long bathroom breaks, Briana is not ready to reveal her condition to Julius if doing so could risk losing her only source of income.
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| Playwright Allison Page |
Rumors are spreading that the only reason Julius was promoted was because of the convenience of his birth name to the corporation's brand. Nevertheless, he’s determined to rise above the doubts and whispers to bring the smoothie stand (as well as the traditions of the American mall) back to their symbolic importance as hubs for local teens. Mistakenly assuming that he is loved, feared, and respected by his employees, Julius is surprised when his daily lectures go over like lead balloons and he starts to alienate a group of teenagers who already feel alienated from the entire world. It doesn’t take long before the natives become restless.
Page’s gifts as a comedy writer are well-established and her play kept the audience roaring with laughter. The pay-off (a gag writer’s dream come true) arrived when, after being stabbed by one of his female subordinates, Julius looked up and gasped “Et tu, Briana?”
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