Tosca

Given the prohibitive costs of shooting and marketing a film - any film, on any subject - any director rash enough to try a "filmed opera" faces a double challenge. It is no longer enough to make an Opera Film: the sort popular in Italy in the 40s and 50s, when opera still enjoyed a wide audience. It is now necessary to make an Opera Film For People Who Hate Opera: one with enough populist appeal to win over millions of film-goers who are either indifferent to opera or can't bear it.

It's a well-nigh impossible trick, and only a handful of directors have come anywhere close to pulling it off. Still, I defy even the most tone-deaf of operaphobes to watch Powell and Pressburger's 1951 Tales of Hoffmann or Losey's 1979 Don Giovanni or Zeffirelli's 1982 La Traviata, and not adore every moment! As for Benoit Jacquot's new film of Tosca...well, he seems to have gone one better than all the others, and turned out the first-ever Opera Movie By A Director Who Obviously Hates Opera, So Why Did He Bother In The First Place?

With its thunderous blood-and-sex soaked libretto and romantically hysterical score, Giacomo Puccini's Tosca is perhaps the greatest melodrama - spoken or sung - ever to hit the stage. As TS Eliot once wrote of a novel by Wilkie Collins; "It has no merit beyond melodrama, but it has every merit that melodrama can have." No piece of musical theatre on earth is less suited to the odious cod-Brechtian 'distancing devices' that Jacquot employs in his deluded attempts to seem avant-garde. If you cannot wallow in the heart-thumpingly overwrought melodramatics of Tosca, you should not go near them at all.

So what can be the logic of splicing in black-and-white footage of the high-priced cast as they record the vocal score? Or those awful jiggly, grainy shots of those monuments in Rome where the action takes place? Or forcing Roberto Alagna and Angela Gheorgiu - the reigning Golden Couple on the international opera scene - to speak the dialogue 'live' while singing it on the soundtrack? This sort of hollow trickery can only outrage opera fans, while leaving the vast majority of the public as bewildered as they ever were.

So Jacquot is both a Philistine and a moron, and his film should be an out-and-out disaster BUT...lacking even the courage of his own puny convictions, most of the time he forgets to be Post-Modern and just gives us the melodrama straight. The result is nothing short of miraculous. As Floria Tosca, an opera diva struggling to save her lover from the clutches of an evil Chief of Police, Angela Gheorghiu is - vocally and dramatically - a rival to our memory of Maria Callas. With her torrent of raven hair, triumphal cheekbones and sulphurous eyes, her screen presence is an echo of Sigourney Weaver.

A pity that her most erotic love interest is not the romantic and revolutionary painter Mario Cavaradossi. (Roberto Alagna, aka Mr. Gheorghiu, lags far behind his wife in vocal skills and shows not the faintest sign of talent as an actor.) Rather, it is the evil police chief Baron Scarpia who deserves to win her heart. Not only a veteran of opera films - including Losey's sumptuous Don Giovanni - Ruggero Raimondi has also acted 'straight' roles, notably as a dotty French nobleman obsessed with immortality in the 1983 Alain Resnais film La Vie Est Un Roman. With his haggard eyes and glittering black greatcoat, Raimondi has an almost vampiric quality. Perhaps the sexiest, most seductive screen villain since Basil Rathbone.

And so - irony of ironies - this Opera Film By A Director Who Hates Opera turns out to be a near-classic, a close rival to Zeffirelli or Losey or Powell-Pressburger. Let's just hope that nobody ever gives Jacquot another opera to direct. Next time, he might really wreck it! Let's hope, on her next project, that Angela Gheorghiu wields her ever-increasing clout and hires a film-maker who actually knows what opera is. Isn't Gerard Corbiau in need of a job? Now that I'd love to see.

David Melville

I adore opera and classical music, and Tosca has been a favourite of mine since forever. So I was interested in seeing this version, despite hearing some very mixed reviews on it. And while it wasn't perfect, it was interesting and fairly impressive. Is it the best Tosca I've seen, performed on stage or on location? No, not for me. I do prefer the 1992 and 1976 versions, both were wonderful in my view.

Where the 2001 version scores is in its filming, which is really quite unique. There are a lot of interesting camera angles, especially in the climax, and the lighting just adds to the atmosphere. The costumes are just beautiful, especially Tosca's dress in Act 3, and the sets and locations are superb. And I was fine with the black and white, this is better when it is in colour but it was a point of interest in a way. The direction is credible enough, while the conducting and the orchestra are top notch.

I can't mention Tosca without mentioning the music. As fond as I am of La Boheme, Madama Butterfly, Manon Lescaut and Turandot, I personally think Tosca is Puccini's magnum opus. For me, it is certainly his darkest and most complex, and Scarpia if done right is likely to live in the mind for a long while after. I cannot watch any filmed version of Tosca, without watching the "te deum" over and over, it is such a beautiful, stirring and powerful piece of music that does move the story forward. I can also watch the whole of Act 2 again and again, so much happens musically and story-wise and it is just amazing for the ears and the senses.

The story is both dark and tragic yet always compelling. The three main characters of the opera are to me among the best in opera history. There's the passionate and beautiful Floria Tosca, the poignant Caveradossi and then the truly snake-like and machiavellian Baron Scarpia, which is a very difficult role and perhaps the most complex of any "villain" in a Puccini opera, and all add a lot to the opera from its opening chords to the evocative climax.

The performances are fine in general. Spoletta and the Sacristan are good, and the chorus are very well-blended. Angela Gheorghiu is overall wonderful as Tosca, her acting mayn't be the best of the Toscas I've seen but she does have her moments such as in Scarpia's death scene, but when it comes to the look and the voice she is far more impressive. She looks very passionate and beautiful and she does show good chemistry with Alagna and Raimondi, while vocally she gives one of her better performances.

Not to say that he was bad, but Roberto Alagna was one of my two or three disappointments with this version. He looks dashing, and he does sing beautifully particularly in Recondita Armonia (though I agree the ambiance doesn't really do him much service) but his acting does come across as rather cold. Consequently Caveradossi doesn't quite come across as poignant enough which was a little disappointing.

I totally concur though about those who praise Ruggero Raimondi. He is absolutely magnificent as Scarpia. He has a great, quite powerful voice, and acting wise, he is by far the best of the principles. I did notice some traits he put here were similar to those he used in Joseph Losey's Don Giovanni, one minute Scarpia is quite charming, next he is really quite menacing and I admit, I got goosebumps just watching him especially in the "te deum" and when he tells Tosca to give herself to him. In fact, Raimondi is up there as one of my favourite Scarpias, up there with Tito Gobbi and Sherrill Milnes(different but I am quite fond of him).

Other than some of the ambiance and Alagna's acting, my only other disappointment was the lip-synching which was rather inconsistent. Overall though, it was interesting and I quite liked it. 7.5/10 Bethany Cox

A superb cast singing gloriously is compromised by odd and arbitrary aspects of presentation in this film, but memory edits out the nonsense and one is left with the first-class acting and singing in the highly traditional and engaging body of the work. Interestingly, the weakness of Cavaradossi as a character, which is a recognised problem with Puccini's wonderful melodrama,. comes across particularly clearly in this production, while the contrasting strength of Tosca and Scarpia--power versus love, one might say, is outstanding.

A minor moan--no Catholic woman would have gone into a church with uncovered hair in the 19th century--and no Papal policeman would go in with his hat on! But this director has the cultural equivalent of a tin ear.

Many people seem to hate the style this film took - blending the black and white behind-the-scenes shots of the actors and actresses recording, along with the casually-dressed orchestra itself - in with the gorgeous sets the actual "production" takes place on, but I myself loved it. It took a completely different aspect on my favorite opera and made it more down-to-earth. However, the grainy outside footage was horrendous, and the only thing I have to complain on about this movie.

Angela Gheorghiu's singing was absolutely top-notch, as was a fantastically evil Scarpia. All the singers played their parts marvelously, and led to a very believable performance "on stage." This is personally my favorite production of Tosca, and with the movie's direction, led to a beautiful behind-the-scenes view of the faces behind the faces that work together to create an opera's production itself! Highly recommended from me.

Tosca is more involving in this film version than in most stage performances. That is astounding. Usually, close-ups of opera performances spoil the effect of the music. The acting and looks of most singers detract from their musical performance. Also, melodrama is out and out funny when it's filmed realistically. But in this film the three leads are fine actors and look their parts. Gheorghiu is physically a magnificent diva. It helps that the lip-synching stops at times. For example Tosca and Caravadossi embrace and kiss while the singing continues, as if in their thoughts. They look right and it sounds right. Black and white video of the taping is occasionally intercut with the full color performance. This is jarring but adds to the magic of the final performance, which seemss effortless. Instead of filming the opera realistically the scenes are made theatrical and larger than life by using impressionistic backgrounds. It feels like a stage performance - only you can see everything perfectly. Wonderful! The film makes me want to hear the opera again. The sound system at the movie theater was no substitute for the real thing or for a CD. But I know that the images from this movie will flash up next time I listen.