The Met’s 2009–10 season opens September 21 with a new production of Tosca, starring Karita Mattila in the title role and conducted by Music Director James Levine. Luc Bondy, one of Europe’s most acclaimed theater directors, makes his Met debut. The three discuss how they’re bringing Puccini’s operatic thriller—and its unforgettable heroine—to the Met stage.
Maestro Levine, you have a long history with Tosca at the Met, all the way back to your debut in 1971. What attracts you to this opera?
James Levine: Tosca combines Puccini’s glorious musical inspiration with the melodramatic vitality of one of the great Hitchcock films. There’s truly amazing music and there’s a brilliantly imagined drama. I’m always amused when I hear people say something disparaging about it—the famous quote, “shabby little shocker”... It’s not an accident that this piece has held the stage so firmly ever since it was written!
Mr. Bondy, you’re known for your psychologically charged stagings of plays and operas. How do you approach Tosca?
Luc Bondy: By trusting the music and the libretto. It’s a thriller and a very exciting story.
The three acts take place in three real places in Rome. The historical background is the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars. Where is your Tosca set?
LB: In the time of Napoleon. Directing singers in a realistic and precise way is more important than translating this kind of story to today. Cruelty is not specific to a certain time or era, and neither is sexual desire mixed with torture. Tosca is recent history and an old story at the same time. What I’d like to bring out in my production is the difference between blind passion and cold strategy.
Karita, you’ve portrayed several passionate heroines at the Met in recent seasons, from Salome to Tatiana to Manon Lescaut. But this is the first time you’ll be singing Tosca outside of Finland. How did you prepare for the role?
Karita Mattila: Tosca is totally different from other Puccini parts that I’ve done, and from many of those classic roles I’ve sung. Usually they have a past, the character grows. I’m used to really digging deep. With Tosca, it’s all happening right now, everything is right here. It really is like an action movie. When I first started working on the role I thought, Oh my God, how does it feel to kill somebody on stage? But once I figured out the movie idea, I realized that’s just what happens.
JL: The piece seizes you from the very first bar and keeps you on the edge of your seat. You get irresistibly caught up in it.
The title heroine is a strong woman, but she also has a fragile side...
KM: Most people concentrate on the things that are superficial about her—that she’s in a rage and she’s jealous and she can be aggressive. But there are so many other qualities. I always try to find the real person within the parts that I do. And Tosca has this humanity. She is deeply in love. She’s famous, there are people who try to take advantage of her. She’s very beautiful and uses her beauty as an asset in a man’s world. She certainly knows how to do that! But no matter how strong she is, her power has limits because she’s a woman. Another essential element of her life is being a passionate Catholic. If you start putting it all together, Tosca begins to look like a deeply feeling, intelligent human being. I think she’s a fascinating woman.
Most of the character development occurs in the first two acts.
JL: Dorothy Kirsten, a great Tosca (she and I did the opera together in San Francisco), used to say the third act is the pure singing act. And I think that’s true. There are the more melodramatic parts of the piece, but then in the last act everything in the aria and the duet is musically and vocally more concentrated.
LB: The third act is like a dark epilogue. It’s not easy to realize on stage. Especially with Cavaradossi, it’s important to find the character and not just the hero with that wonderful aria.
Karita, is it intimidating to take on iconic roles like Tosca?
KM: Any serious artist gets nervous when people say, You will be compared to all the legendary Toscas. But the more you get involved in the process, the more these things fade away. You make the role your own. It comes together with this blessing we have as singers—we have the music. We are so lucky! I love to talk about the drama side of things—it makes it whole for me. But I try to approach every role in an organic way, including the drama and the music. The one belongs to the other.
JL: Tosca has a special energy, a different kind of excitement. In many operas that have a certain quantity of detail, you try to get closer to an overall conception each time you conduct it. With Tosca, you try to make every single performance reach its own maximum boiling point. Edited by Philipp Brieler
Tosca runs through October 17 and returns in April. The October 10 matinee kicks off the 2009–10 Live in HD season.