Puccini: Tosca (1956)

Puccini: Tosca (1956) (DVD) (*)

Out of Stock

Language Selections:
English ( Subtitles )
French ( Subtitles )
Italian ( DTS 5.1 )
Italian ( Mono )
Italian ( Subtitles )
Spanish ( Subtitles )

Product Origin/Format:
Italy ( PAL/NTSC/Region 0 )

Running Time:
107 min

Aspect Ratio:
Widescreen (1.78:1)

Special Features:
Interactive Menu
Scene Access

Movie filmed in 1956 and produced in:
Italy ( Italy, Greece )

Directed By:
Carmine Gallone

Written By:
Carmine Gallone

Actors:
Maria Caniglia
Franco Corelli
Franca Duval
Franco Pugliese
Oliverio de Fabritiis

Synopsis:

The work, based on Victorien Sardou's 1887 French-language dramatic play, La Tosca, is a melodramatic piece set in Rome in June 1800, with the Kingdom of Naples's control of Rome threatened by Napoleon's invasion of Italy. It contains depictions of torture, murder and suicide, as well as some of Puccini's best-known lyrical arias. Franco Corelli, Franca Duval (voice of Maria Caniglia), and Afro Poli (voice of Gian Giacomo Guelfi) star in this 1956 film with the Orchestra & Chorus Of the Rome Opera conducted by Oliviero De Fabritiis. Carmine Gallone directs.

Since its premiere at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900, Tosca has been one of the most popular operas in the great lyric repertory, and one of the most popular of Puccini's operas. Its powerful theatrical impact, the recognized melodic and dramatic drive of its music, and the triple starring roles-soprano, tenor, baritone-are the successful ingredients of a work that in its original theatre version by Sardou could never have hoped for so much success even though the great Sarah Bernhardt-the star of the play-had made it one of her great roles. And it was she, the French actress, who first brought Tosca to the cinema, in a film made in 1908, a film that, predictably, did not satisfy her (at the time, the divine Sarah was already 64 years old) but nonetheless showed-as did the success of Puccini's opera-that Tosca could reach an audience beyond the theatrical stage. In 1940 the great Jean Renoir took up the subject of Tosca for a film in which the young Luchino Visconti, then at the very start of his cinema career, was Renoir's assistant director. They didn't simply present Sardou's play on film; instead, they wrote a screenplay based on Sardou (Cavaradossi was played by Rossano Brazzi) and prepared a soundtrack that utilized Puccinian themes and some vocal passages by two celebrated singers of the time, Mafalda Favero and Ferruccio Tagliavini. RAI television, initiated after the war, began in the mid-fifties to present films of Puccini's opera, one with Corelli and Tagliabue in 1955 and another with Magda Olivero in 1960, and these have been followed in recent years by two films of Tosca shot on the "Tosca locations" in Rome. The first was made in 1977, with Raina Kabaiwanska and Placido Domingo, the second in 1992 with Catherine Malfitano and again Domingo. We should mention also the comic musical version filmed in 1973 with the unforgettable trio of Vitti, Proietti, and Gassman and the now-lost film made by Zeffirelli, with Callas and Gobbi, of which only the soundtrack recorded by EMI in 1964 remains. And now, as further confirmation of Tosca's fascination as a subject for cinema, we have here a forgotten film of the opera made in 1956, in color and cinemascope, on the set at Cinecitta in Rome, by the experienced director Carmine Gallone. In the 1940's Gallone became very popular with numerous films made from operas or inspired by melodrama. (Among them is "Before Him All of Rome Trembled," shot in 1946 with Tito Gobbi and interweaving portions of Tosca with episodes from the anti-Fascist Resistance.) Gallone was a veteran director with a string of successful films: of Puccini, Casa Ricordi, and-among Italian comedies-a series of very popular films about Don Camillo and the Honorable Peppone, inspired by the novels of Giovanni Guareschi. However, unlike his earlier films of operas, which usually had selections from the opera sung by voices that were off-camera, this film presents Tosca in its entirety (except for a few necessary minor cuts or repetitions) and in a form that is technically much superior to the films made on tight budgets immediately after the war. The fifties were the golden years of Cinecitta, and even in a "minor" genre like the filming of operas, one sees how greatly the habits of its filmmakers had changed. Gone was the ingenuous simplicity of black-and-white films. Here, instead, we have a more ambitious production, with Giuseppe Rotunno's cinematography, with costumes by the unforgettable Maria De Matteis, and with no less a person than Renzo Rossellini (assisted by Luigi Ricci) as musical consultant. And, though preserving the authentically Italian flavor typical of Gallone, this film seems almost to be in love, too, with American cinema, especially in the sumptuous casting of its two stars. Certainly Franca Duval, so elegant and detached, is a very different Tosca from those usually seen in our theatres, who are passionate, vehement, and, deep down, a bit common. And furthermore, the voice on the soundtrack is that of Maria Caniglia, the most Italian of our sopranos, close to retirement in 1956 (she retired from the stage in 1959, in a final performance of Tosca in Cairo) but still able to project her Floria, sumptuous as it was in its velvety quality and richness of timbre, as good as the Floria of the famous recording she had made twenty years earlier with Gigli, in both cases with the chorus and orchestra of the Rome Opera under the consummate direction of Oliviero De Fabritiis. The pitiless cliche cynicism of Scarpia is handled with moderation by Afro Poli, a baritone with a solid career who, who knows why, submitted to the humiliation of being dubbed by a much younger colleague, Gian Giacomo Guelfi, a new baritone with a thunderous voice, unquestionably more terrifying in its impetuosity. The decision to dub was not a novelty, however; in an earlier film of an opera-La Forza del Destino-Gallone had hired Galliano Masini to be the voice of the tenor who acted the part, Gino Sinimberghi. But the star of this film-truly worthy to compete, as a fascinating "Latin lover," with the stars of Hollywood-is without question Franco Corelli, only five years into his career but already at the height of the firmament of tenors. And after all, who could avoid being overwhelmed not only by the vigorous presence of this thirty-five-year-old but above all by his voice, bronzed and fulminant on the high notes, of enormous amplitude yet also endearing? It was two years later, after a period of valuable study with Lauri-Volpi, that the great Corelli had his triumphs in the La Scala in Milan, in forgotten operas like The Pirate, Poliuto, and The Hugenots. But already here, in this Cavaradossi who is passionate, sensual, and heroic, we encounter the extraordinary singer and sensitive artist the world was soon to recognize. The thunderbolt shouts of "Vittoria, vittoria!" and the ineffable softness of "le belle forme disciogliea dai veli" are the extremes that define an exceptional performance, coupled as it was with a physical presence for which the exalted exclamation of Tosca, "Com'e bello il mio Mario!" has never been more appropriate. And what shall we say, finally, about Carmine Gallone as director of this film? That without question it is his most refined achievement in the filming of operas. He deliberately gave it a cinematographic rather than theatrical setting. The restrained style of his actors-so different from the showy performances we expect-is fully justified in this setting, as are certain of his highly intelligent scenic innovations. An example is the slow movement with which Tosca puts down her wineglass as she considers the idea of killing Scarpia when she sees the knife on the table; or again, the careful way in which-in perfect harmony with the music-she lines up the candelabras on each side of the corpse of Scarpia. These are two scenic treatments that we see copied by Zeffirelli and enacted with masterful art by Callas in the second act of the celebrated film of her performance of Tosca at Covent Garden in London in 1964. When you remember that Callas and Corelli sang together in Fedora exactly in this year, 1956, you can only regret that their exceptional artistic pairing was not repeated also for this Tosca.

This product was added to our catalog on Thursday 14 April, 2016.