And as Tosca has gobbled up so much of my bandwidth over the past 60 years, it has also gradually become the operatic equivalent of my own private Rocky Horror Picture Show. No, I don’t come dressed as any of the characters to live Tosca performances, nor do I hurl replicas of its iconic props at the stage during pivotal moments. But the anarchist in me spawned by longtime residence in the nation’s capital, where audience participation while moviegoing is normal, always fights the urge to warn Scarpia in the nick of time, “Yo, look out, she gotta knife!” And since I know it pretty much by heart, I do sing along to myself, and I know I’m not alone. I succumb to the score’s sensuality, aggression and kinkiness that encourage me to get my secret freak on. Illica and Giacosa’s libretto is both a superbly crafted masterpiece of the thriller genre and a treasure trove of bons mots suitable for most any occasion. I’m not the kind of gay who punctuates a diss with, “Oh, snap!;” I much prefer to register Schadenfreude by pumping my first skyward while hollering, “Questo è il bacio di Tosca!” Viewing media coverage of a White House staff meeting seems more palatable if I can roll my eyes and snarkily sing, “Dunque per compiacervi, si dovrebbe mentir?”
We all know that, when Tosca is good, she is very, very good (c.f. the classic EMI de Sabata recording with Callas/di Stefano/Gobbi or the 1956 Met broadcast led by Mitropoulos with Tebaldi/Tucker/Warren). When she is bad, she can be divinely camp (c.f. a 1986 Met performance I caught, hilariously memorable for soprano Eva Marton’s registering with ÁVH-blunt body language and inflections her abject loathing for the tenor portraying her “beloved” Cavaradossi, a cartoonishly showboating Franco Bonisolli. And when Tosca is very very bad, it can be party material filth (c.f. the Vassilka Petrova/Eddy Ruhl complete Westminster recording). The strange karma associated with its performance history has resulted in seemingly everyone I’ve known in the field having a killer near-miss Tosca anecdote (ask me sometime to share a personal favorite courtesy of longtime Met artistic staff member Charles Riecker). Yet still, Tosca rises. I know many of our Italian friends will greet my choice with a derisive, “Tosca? Ma che pizza!” To which I respond, “Right, but it is still pizza, and that’s fine by me. You can make mine extra cheesy.” (Slight preference for mozzarella di buffala—but I’m really not too picky.)
