Puccini - Tosca (1985)

This is the best of Placido Domingo's several video performances as the painter Cavaradossi, lover of the prima donna Floria Tosca and enthusiast of revolutionary ideals in the repressive atmosphere of Napoleonic-era Rome. His colleagues, Cornell MacNeil and Hildegard Behrens, are both seasoned and highly capable performers who make the deadly confrontation between Tosca and the corrupt police chief Scarpia intense and believable. Guiseppe Sinopoli conducts with style and dramatic power. But in many ways the primary reason for wanting Tosca in a video rather than an audio recording is the staging by Franco Zeffirelli--effective for the few thousand who saw it in the opera house but even more effective on camera for the much larger television and home video audience. He shifts easily from the small-scale duets in Act I to the grandiose spectacle of the "Te Deum" just before the curtain. His attention to small details helps build the tension in Act II to its violent climax, and in Act III he gives poignancy to the abrupt shift from hope to despair. The essence of Tosca is melodrama, and the singers, conductor, director, and audience all revel in it. --Joe McLellan Amazon.com essential video

Excellent

Excellent audio-video! Always a pleasure to see a Met/Zefarelli production. While the "movie" versions are very well done, I prefer to see the staged versions and the Met and Franco are tops! This a remarkably crisp image for a older production. The remastering is superb and the cast is world-class, of course. July 13, 2008

splendid!

Wonderful! All this talk of bad acting, poor voices, unintelligent casting is some reviewers' attempt to make themselves feel important. It's opera, and it's Puccini, so forgiving larger-than-life gestures, scenery, and emotions is not only easy to do, but necessary. All three leads embody their characters well, and in the opera house, it must have been magnificent. On film, it's a wonderful taste of what some of us never got the chance to see. December 26, 2007

Tosca! Rome! Youth!

Tosca was the first opera I ever saw, in 1964, from the last row of the topmost balcony of the Rome Opera. I went expecting not to be impressed, feeling a twenty-something surliness toward "bourgeois" art. Fortunately, it was a grand production, though I can't remember who sang or conducted, and I've loved opera ferociously ever since. I was living at the time in an apartment just outside the Campo dei Fiori, with a close-up view out my window of the great domed church of San Andrea, where the first act of Tosca unfolds. The opera stage was a near-perfect recreation of that church, where I often sat and thought. I'd never seen such stagecraft before, and the recollection of its impact makes me think that opera should always maintain its tradition of visual magnificence, if only to dazzle the neophyte.
I've kept that apartment for nearly forty years now, and being there for a few days, I watched this Tosca. How could I give it less than five stars, when it seems so true to what I saw first? I have to agree with the review by "fiordiligi" that Behrens isn't Tosca, however well she sings. Domingo is almost too forceful for Cavaradossi, that eternal wuss in revolutionary plumage, but who can complain about such vocal command? The character who makes Tosca, however, is Scarpia, a villain so odious one anticipates his destruction gleefully even after seeing the opera many times. It's the villains who make melodrama appealing; the heroes are always mawkish or wispy, and the heroines are never quite fully human. Cornell MacNeil is superb as Scarpia, both vocally and visually. He's not much of a physical actor, I suppose, but the skillful use of camera close-ups reveals his face to be a mobile mask of hatefulness. The cinematography of this DVD is so good that I have to place it on a par with the singing. If you can't afford time-travel to Rome in 1964, I'd say this is at least a fine evening's consolation. November 7, 2007

This one is for us ladies.

If you are female and looking for a production of TOSCA, look no further. Placido Domingo is at his peak here. He looks marvellous, acts beautifully and his singing is beyond superlatives. I am not even going to try. Ladies, after watching this, I went to bed and dreamt of Mario Cavaradossi and how I would NEVER have put him in danger!

Before I get to the opera itself there are two marvellous extras on this DVD - THANK YOU, DEUTSCHE GRAMMAPHON. In one Franco Zeffirelli takes you on a tour of the three Roman locations of the opera and discusses his view on the relationships between the three main characters. The other is an interview with Ms. Behrens, Mr. Domingo (drool) and Mr. Macneil.

I am at a loss to understand complaints that Ms. Behrens looks too old. She is not supposed to be a movie actress but an opera singer. How many very young opera stars are there? Anyway, why can't Cavaradossi fall in love with a woman older than he is?

That said, the perfect Tosca would be perfectly balanced between the three main characters. Here, Mr. Domingo is just so much better than the other two that the production is out of kilter. Mr. Zeffirelli explains that he sees Scarpia as a dangerously attractive man, and that Tosca is attracted despite herself. In killing him, she is striking out at that unwelcome attraction as well.

That sounds great, but neither Mr. Macneil nor Ms. Behrens can bring it off. Scarpia comes off as real nasty, though Mr. Macneil's singing, and his acting in the death scene are tremendous. He is particularly good at the end of Act I, where his positively blasphemous thoughts are expressed against the choral backdrop of the Te Deum. Ms. Behren's voice came across too thin, to me, except in "vissi d'arte". She was excellent in Act III.

The sets and staging are gorgeous. That alone makes the opera worth buying. September 15, 2007

Magnificant!

Act I, the chapel scene as designed by Zeffirelli and executed by some very talented artist will never, in my opinion, be matched by other designers. It is truly a masterpiece, so good, in fact, that at the end of the act, the curtain closes, only to reopen for the most fabulous tableau ever! While the rest of the sets are grand, this Act I makes this DVD a valuable asset to any designer seeking inspiration, no matter the size of their working stage. July 7, 2007

More reviews at Amazon.com ...