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Rough Music: Tosca and Verismo Reconsidered

Rough Music: Tosca and Verismo Reconsidered Abstract This article offers a new interpretation of the operatic phenomenon known as verismo , and of the relationship of Puccini's Tosca with that movement. In contrast to previous scholarship on verismo , which often treats the relationship between literature and music as transparent, I stress that marrying empiricist aesthetics to traditional operatic values was a highly unnatural process. I suggest that Italian opera in the 1890s was pushed to a sort of crisis point, and that the very act of singing could no longer be taken as self-evident. Composers developed a set of new techniques—offstage song, performer-characters, an extreme reliance on bells—to deal with this sudden untenability of operatic convention. All of these techniques were elaborated most fully in Tosca , and the opera might be read as an allegory of the verismo moment, embodying the conflict between hard-nosed realism and unapologetic singing in its two antagonists: Baron Scarpia and Floria Tosca. The plot clearly endorses Tosca's position, but a close reading of the opera's music suggests a rather different interpretation. By focusing on the role of bells in the opera, I argue that realistic sound often overwhelms the autonomy of the characters, at times seeming to collapse them into the scenery itself. Early critics were disturbed by this aspect of the music. Listening to the opera with their ears may help us realize that—despite its overt celebration of individual freedom, and its much-lauded critique of state-sanctioned violence— Tosca exhibits an antisubjective impulse that has much in common with other “Fascist” and “proto-Fascist” texts. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png 19th-Century Music University of California Press

Rough Music: Tosca and Verismo Reconsidered

Schwartz, Arman
19th-Century Music , Volume 31 (3) – Apr 1, 2008
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17 pages

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References (3)

Publisher
University of California Press
Copyright
Copyright © by the University of California Press
ISSN
0148-2076
eISSN
1533-8606
DOI
10.1525/ncm.2008.31.3.228
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Abstract This article offers a new interpretation of the operatic phenomenon known as verismo , and of the relationship of Puccini's Tosca with that movement. In contrast to previous scholarship on verismo , which often treats the relationship between literature and music as transparent, I stress that marrying empiricist aesthetics to traditional operatic values was a highly unnatural process. I suggest that Italian opera in the 1890s was pushed to a sort of crisis point, and that the very act of singing could no longer be taken as self-evident. Composers developed a set of new techniques—offstage song, performer-characters, an extreme reliance on bells—to deal with this sudden untenability of operatic convention. All of these techniques were elaborated most fully in Tosca , and the opera might be read as an allegory of the verismo moment, embodying the conflict between hard-nosed realism and unapologetic singing in its two antagonists: Baron Scarpia and Floria Tosca. The plot clearly endorses Tosca's position, but a close reading of the opera's music suggests a rather different interpretation. By focusing on the role of bells in the opera, I argue that realistic sound often overwhelms the autonomy of the characters, at times seeming to collapse them into the scenery itself. Early critics were disturbed by this aspect of the music. Listening to the opera with their ears may help us realize that—despite its overt celebration of individual freedom, and its much-lauded critique of state-sanctioned violence— Tosca exhibits an antisubjective impulse that has much in common with other “Fascist” and “proto-Fascist” texts.

Journal

19th-Century Music – University of California Press

Published: Apr 1, 2008

Keywords: Keywords verismo , Tosca , bells , reception history , futurism

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