Roger Hecht wrote:
>My lifelong love of opera began the day I heard Tosca in English. It
>is such a dramatic piece, almost cinematic. I doubt hearing it first
>in Italian would have had the same effect. Certainly, hearing other
>operas in the original language did not. But when I heard this one, I
>suddenly realized that opera was music AND drama and for the uninitiated,
>at least, there is no drama when listening in a foreign language. As
>Puccini certainly knew. In his day, opera was to be savored and its text
>immediately understood by everyone. It was not just a jewel to be admired
>from afar by the elite. Otherwise he'd have written Tosca in English. Or
>Sanskrit.
My reaction to hearing Tosca, from the very first was similar to how
you describe yours, except I didn't hear it in English and, certainly at
that age, knew no Italian. All I had going for me in following the story
was Milton Cross' explanation of the plot, act by act. From the opening
scene w/ its delicate music (which I'd describe as pastoral) accompanying
the priest in the church where Mario is working on his painting, to the
increasingly dramatic scenes, I found the opera, w/ its music and plot
breath taking. To this day, it's for me the opera that has everything:
love, jealousy, hate, sadism, revenge, piety, deception, and culminating
in a totally cathartic ending.
Walter Meyer
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