Organization

Stage director

Johannes Schaaf

Set designer

Christof Cremer

Costume designer

Petra Reinhardt

Lighting designer

Guido Petzold

Chorus master

Jonathan Becker

children's choir

Claudia Sebastian-Bertsch

Dramaturge

Ilsedore Reinsberg

Singer

Soprano

Maria Agresta

Floria Tosca

Tenor

Dmytro Popov

Mario Cavaradossi

Baritone

Alexey Markov

Baron Scarpia

Bass

Lawson Anderson

Cesare Angelotti

Matthias Henneberg

The sacristan

Timothy Oliver

Spoletta

Ilya Silchukov

Sciarrone

Rupert Grössinger

A jailer

Others

Kinderchor der Semperoper Dresden

Orchestra

Staatskapelle Dresden

Sächsischer Staatsopernchor Dresden

DresdenKinderchor

Italian

Tosca

Dresden

Germany

Semperoper

Tosca Puccini

Public

German

English

Approved

Thoughts on the conception of Johannes Schaaf
Regarding Cavaradossi's prehistory, Sardou says that he offers the Jesuits of Sant' Andrea della Valle to paint a fresco in their church. In doing so, he wants to distract those in power from his actual political convictions. Cavaradossi is similar to Georg Büchner's drama figures. In the end, however, he understands why he lives. His initially non-committal erotic relationship with Tosca drags Scarpia out of her isolation. Their relationship gets a story. It could have been a love story. The opera »Tosca« is also an artist's story. Tosca and Cavaradossi perish because they realize too late that reality applies not only to others, but also to them. They believed themselves to be invulnerable as artists. Scarpia, on the other hand, is actually not vulnerable, but he can be killed in a short-circuit action. The three-way battle – Scarpia, Cavaradossi, Tosca – is decidedly more exciting for Scarpia than all police surveillance. "But Scarpia is not a demon – he is a man who glows with cold. That, too, is love, though not a 'domestic one.'" (Johannes Schaaf). The love and passion that Puccini admits to him has something of Shakespeare's »Terror of Love«.

The time of the action is fixed. 1st variant: 17 June 1800, the day of the escape of the historic Angelotti from Castel Sant'Angelo. By September 1799, Rome had fallen into the hands of the Royal Neapolitan troops. Maria Carolina, wife of the weak King of Naples, annexes Rome and settles accounts. In a wave of purges, political opponents are hunted down as traitors and collaborators. Tens of thousands are arrested without trial, thousands are killed after torture by their police chief. The most important political prisoner is Cesare Angelotti, who was appointed consul of Rome by the French.

Johannes Schaaf during a rehearsal for »Tosca«
Johannes Schaaf © Semperoper Dresden/Matthias Creutziger
The time of the action is fixed. Variant 2: June 14, 1800, the day of the Battle of Marengo, a village in the Italian province of Alessandria. The Austrians won the battle against Napoleon Bonaparte in the Second Coalition War and immediately announced victory. A new attack by the French cavalry brought the turnaround. The French had won. The plot of the opera begins with the fleeting Angelotti, the musical action with powerful orchestral beats, the violence of which can be associated with Scarpia. Angelotti does not return to the plot after Cavaradossi leads him out of the church. His suicide is reported. The hunt for political opponents is Scarpia's profession, and he masters it with absolute perfection and precision. The desire to submit to the singer Tosca gets a real chance through Angelotti's escape and the help of Cavaradossi. The deadly love triangle between Tosca, Cavaradossi and Scarpia during a wave of political purges is the center of the plot, not the historical detail around 1800. Compared to Tosca and Cavaradossi, the audience is in the position of the more knowledgeable. The co-suffering during Cavaradossi's torture or Tosca's pain at the side of the slain lover is created together with the transparency of the events. In contrast to Sardou's drama, with the exception of Angelotti, there are invariably people who participate in political power in some way, but do not have the power themselves. To a certain extent, they have "established" themselves in the system. In the drama triggered by Angelotti's escape, Tosca and Cavaradossi get into the mills of the system, although they act primarily for personal and ethical motives. Thus, the opera »Tosca« is not a musical snitch for petty bourgeois, but a human, touching drama of the artists who reflect life in their art – but not real life.

Tosca by Puccini, From (2022/2022), Directed by Johannes Schaaf,, Semperoper, Dresden, Germany

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