TOSCA – PUCCINI
Presented on May 12, 14, 17, 19 at the Gaiety Theatre Dublin as part of the Dublin Grand Opera Society’s Spring Season
Maria Boi – Tosca
Alvinio Misciano – Cavaradossi
Tito Gobbi / Paolo Silveri[May 19] – Scarpia
Plinio Clabassi – Angelotti
Arturo La Porta – Sacristan
Brendan Cavanagh – Spoletta
Clem Morris – Sciarrone
Giuseppe Morelli – Conductor
Bruno Nofri – Producer
Tito Gobbi was at the peak of his career when he arrived to sing Scarpia. A superb singing-actor, he had by now under his belt more than thirty principal roles – he would eventually top the hundred mark. He was known to devote a lot of study to a new role and admitted that before he sang his first “Macbeth” in Italy he spent a long time thinking about the make-up he would use. In the case of Scarpia, it was the same approach, down to the exact kind of costume he would wear. ‘One reason why I love “Tosca”,’ he said, ‘is that it becomes a new opera with every change of the name part. I have had the privilege of partnering some of the finest Toscas in the world, and every one was subtly and fascinatingly different.’ He first sang Scarpia in his early twenties in Rome. He reckoned the character was a man in his forties but when someone told him that in the part he walked like a man in his twenties he became upset. Irish audiences had heard about Gobbi’s successes and packed the Gaiety for the first night. It was a gala occasion graced by the President of Ireland, Sean T O’Kelly and his wife. Apart from Gobbi, the cast included Alvinio Misciano as Cavaradossi and the soprano Maria Boi in the title role. Giuseppe Morelli was the conductor. The papers the next morning concentrated almost exclusively on Gobbi’s portrayal of the evil chief of police. One critic found it ‘too overpowering, especially the act two confrontation between Scarpia and Floria Tosca,’ and added, ‘This was extraordinarily vivid acting, supported by a wealth of glorious singing.’ Independent Newspapers had a fine tradition for producing excellent music critics and Mary MacGoris was soon to display an exemplary eye for musical and dramatic detail, and from the middle 1950s onwards she became the most important voice on the newspaper scene. Summing up that season’s “Tosca”, she noted, ‘It was the powerfully controlled voice of Tito Gobbi – a voice that easily rode over the trombones at the end of act one – that struck me most forcibly. It was used subtly to suit every turn of the dramatic situation and the singer invested Scarpia with a blatant evil which made credible the chief of police before whom all Rome trembled – “Tutte Roma Tremava”. Paolo Silveri’s portrayal of the part – he sang one performance, on May 19 – was no less riveting. In conversation, he reminded me that it was one of the roles that set him on the road to fame. From the outset, he was totally conquered by it, fascinated by the character’s sinister, twisted and malevolent nature, comprising love, hate, treachery and contempt which vied with a conflicting intellect. Scarpia’s personality was, he told himself, the very opposite of his own, so for that reason he felt it made the role psychologically difficult for him to portray but in time he mastered it. Operagoers in Dublin were divided about his and Gobbi’s interpretations and some oldtimers told me they had attended both performances. ‘I adored Silveri’s Scarpia – if that’s the right way to put it,’ Jeannie Reddin assured me. ‘I do believe it was the definitive portrayal.’ Chorus members, who sang in both performances, told me that if Gobbi’s portrayal was more subtle perhaps, Silveri’s was better sung. Aileen Walsh was still convinced that neither of their portrayals equalled that of the Czech baritone Otakar Kraus whom she regarded as ‘frightening’ in the part. ‘I’ll never forget the way he stalked Tosca in act two, and the evil in his eyes.’ Veronica Dunne was inclined to agree with Miss Walsh about the merits of Kraus’s Scarpia without however passing judgment on either Gobbi or Silveri.
(Extracted from “Love and Music: The Glorious History of the Dublin Grand Opera Society” by Gus Smith, 1998)
Opera in Ireland 