As the tempestuous diva Floria Tosca, the Romanian soprano Angela Gheorghiu smolders with a nineteen-forties glamour.
Yet this 1953 "Tosca" sends chills down my spine no matter how often I listen to it.
WSJ: Maria Callas | Puccini's Tosca | The Measure of a Diva | Masterpiece by David Mermelstein
Of the costumes, only a few original pieces remain including Tosca's shawl, which was worn by Callas herself.
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The Royal Opera House plans a new production of Tosca, saying it hopes to establish another long running success.
BBC: NEWS | Entertainment | Swansong for opera's 40-year run
In May, Tosca revealed a stake in Phoenix, a Hartford-based insurance concern.
Mr. Legge's casting of the not-yet-30-year-old Ms. Callas as the temperamental singer Floria Tosca was as obvious as it was inspired.
WSJ: Maria Callas | Puccini's Tosca | The Measure of a Diva | Masterpiece by David Mermelstein
Puccini's opera is based on Victorien Sardou's play "La Tosca, " which was written for the actress Sarah Bernhardt in the late 19th century.
WSJ: Maria Callas | Puccini's Tosca | The Measure of a Diva | Masterpiece by David Mermelstein
After World War II she concentrated on singing, landing lead parts in Tosca and Ariadne auf Naxos with the New York City Opera.
Callas made her final stage appearance as Puccini's Tosca, in 1965.
Tosca runs up a flight of stairs into the tower, and then a stunt double leaps from a window and, thanks to a wire, stops in midair.
Puccini's "Tosca" was the first of 16 Italian operas that Ms. Callas, then in her prime, made under the guidance of the great English record producer Walter Legge.
WSJ: Maria Callas | Puccini's Tosca | The Measure of a Diva | Masterpiece by David Mermelstein
The major gaffe of the night comes after Tosca kills Scarpia, when, according to the libretto, she places candles by his side and a crucifix on his chest.
Domingo has also made more than fifty music videos in addition to four feature films of operas: Carmen, La Traviata, Otello and Tosca, with the Mantua Rigoletto forthcoming.
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The shows and movies Schifrin scored were, indeed, not Tosca.
When Luc Bondy's semitransgressive "Tosca, " which opened the Met's 2009 season to critical brickbats, returned in the spring of 2010 with new and excellent principals, it looked like a different show.
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Amazingly, the production directed by Franco Zeffirelli marked the first time Ms. Callas and Mr. Gobbi together performed "Tosca" before an audience. (Alas, Mr. di Stefano is absent.) But the voices are a decade older.
WSJ: Maria Callas | Puccini's Tosca | The Measure of a Diva | Masterpiece by David Mermelstein
The franchise has been notorious in recent years for hiring first-time managers at the major league level (Carlos Tosca, John Gibbons, Tim Johnson, Buck Martinez and John Farrell) and the results have been disappointing.
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When opera lovers start thinking about vital recordings, one in particular is almost always mentioned: EMI's 1953 "Tosca, " with Maria Callas, Giuseppe di Stefano and Tito Gobbi in the leading roles and Victor de Sabata conducting.
WSJ: Maria Callas | Puccini's Tosca | The Measure of a Diva | Masterpiece by David Mermelstein
The specifics are not insignificant, but at its core the opera is about the competing forces of good (personified by Tosca and the freedom-loving painter Mario Cavaradossi) and evil (evoked by the villainous Baron Scarpia) writ large.
WSJ: Maria Callas | Puccini's Tosca | The Measure of a Diva | Masterpiece by David Mermelstein
And while the opera's ending is, of course, never in doubt, I still find myself thinking that maybe this time Cavaradossi and Tosca will escape the clutches of Scarpia's henchmen, so vital is the spirit that Ms. Callas and Mr. di Stefano bring to their roles.
WSJ: Maria Callas | Puccini's Tosca | The Measure of a Diva | Masterpiece by David Mermelstein
Then, the musical references to classics like the final trio of "Der Rosenkavalier, " to signal renunciation of youth and love (there's even a nonsinging character called Sophie), and the orchestral passage after Tosca murders Scarpia, festooning the corpse with candles and a cross (here, the diva burns her photographs and then snuffs all the candles in her apartment).
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