Giacomo Puccini

by Wakeling Dry

A gaoler enters and looks over the parapet to see if the soldiers to whom is entrusted the grim task of execution have arrived. Led by a sergeant, the picket enters, bringing Cavaradossi. The gaoler, after making him sign a paper, tells him that he has an hour, and that a priest is at his disposal. Cavaradossi, after giving a ring to the gaoler as the price of the favour, is allowed to write a letter, and sings his beautiful air, one of the chief lyrical gems of the opera, "E luce van stelle." It ends emotionally, and the singer bursts into tears with the thought that never was life so dear to him as now when he is within sight of death.

Spoletta comes in bringing Tosca, and is amazed to find that she brings a safe-conduct. Tosca and Cavaradossi join in a finely expressive duet, in which the latter learns of her devotion, and how for him she killed Scarpia. Towards the close the voices are unsupported, and the whole number has a very characteristic force and movement.

PUCCINI AT TORRE DEL LAGO IN HIS MOTOR BOAT "BUTTERFLY"

The sky has gradually been getting lighter, and the passage of time is marked by the striking of the hour of four by the church clock. Then Tosca gives the final instructions to the condemned man. "As soon as they fire, fall down." Cavaradossi, in his joy at his coming release, is even able to be humorous, and suggests that he will be acting like Tosca.

Tosca watches the supposed execution from the parapet. "How well he acts!" she cries, after she has covered her ears with her hands to shut out the sound of the shooting, and then sees her lover prostrate on the ground. Leaning over, she calls to him: "Get up, Mario, now. Quickly away, Mario, Mario." Then with a heart-piercing cry she learns that Scarpia has been false to the end, and that the execution has in very truth taken place. By this time the news of Scarpia's death has come out, and Spoletta naturally fixes on Tosca as the murderess. The soldiers' voices are heard joining in the hue and cry, and Sciarrone comes in to seize Tosca. Tosca after thrusting back Spoletta nearly to the ground, hurls herself from the parapet. Her last thoughts are of the tyrant who has so cruelly wronged her, and her last words are: "O Scarpia, we shall face God together!"

In pure orchestration, Puccini in Tosca shows an advance on La Bohème, in the general symphonic fulness and in the more extended use of representative themes. The orchestra employed is the usual large orchestra of the moderns, and Puccini adds a third flute, a contrabassoon, a celesta, and for the special effects in the opening of the third act a set of bells. There are several places where more work than hitherto is obtained from the dividing of the strings, but not in any way like the Strauss method, for example, of subdividing them into several distinct groups. As will have been seen during the progress of the story, the themes stand out as invariably characteristic, and at the first entrance of Tosca the theme is delightful, given out by the flute against the plucked strings. There is excellent work by the wood wind in the impressive finale of the first act, which is mainly developed out of the bell theme.

In the pastoral music at the opening of the third act Puccini uses with characteristic force a passage of fifths—one which he is always very fond of employing, and which, curiously enough, always has the effect of bringing about the special flavour or atmosphere it is intended to convey in any one particular place.

In the Daily Telegraph the critic prefaces his column notice, which appeared the day after the first production, with a protest against the conjunction of a pure and beautiful art—music—with the workings of a humanity that has gone to the devil. But apart from these considerations, the writer has little but praise for the singularly lucid libretto.

"The first and all important remark to make concerning the music," he proceeds, "has to do with its Italian character. There is very little that can be regarded as common to it and to the typical German opera. The pedestal is not on the stage and the statue in the orchestra. Tosca does not offer us declamation as a key to symphonic music nor symphonic music as a key to declamation. The work does not follow the old operatic lines into matter of detail. All is subordinate to the changing situations and emotions of the stage. So far Tosca is modern; for the rest it presents the characteristics which have always distinguished Italian opera—long reaches of tender or passionate melody, intense climaxes, and a disposition to proceed everywhere on broad and direct lines to the desired goal."