Character Building: Ken Gibbs

Tosca by Puccini

It seems that I am a Philistine – according to my wife – and that to achieve some degree of ‘polish’, my character needs to be built, when opportunity presents itself.

Recently, opportunity presented itself in the form of an invitation to the opera. As the invitation was not extended to me, my wife accepted on my behalf and only informed me minutes before I had to start preparing. I suspect that she reasoned that if I had no warning, I could not manufacture a creative excuse in the short time available.

She was right. I wracked my brains, but to no avail.

To sugar the pill a bit, it was decided that we would eat before the performance and we duly found the only restaurant open in the right part of town – an Indian restaurant. Happily it wasn’t a ‘take-away’ or my fingers would have been stained. In fact, the food was excellent, if a bit pricey, and the four of us in the party ate a range of foods from a fiery vindaloo to a mild balti. Our hosts obviously enjoyed the food as much as we did.

Since I am not an opera-buff and know nothing of the story of Tosca – which was the opera in question – I asked my companions for a resumé. All three knew the story but somehow couldn’t recall the names of the characters nor exactly who was related to whom, and why. To be expected from an Italian opera, I suppose. However, our host remarked that he had once seen a production of Tosca where the heroine had thrown herself off the battlements after she discovers her lover has been killed, and she kept returning and returning. It seems that the trampoline placed below the battlements was too tightly tensioned.

My hopes were raised. Would technology fail at our performance ?

My briefing was as thorough as it was confusing. The only facts that I had gleaned apart from a persistently rebounding dead Tosca was that while alive, she was in love with the painter – Mario – who was helping to hide a fugitive (unpronounceable name) who was being pursued by an officer (name forgotten). These four all die, one way or another.

Now blood and thunder I can handle. The more bodies, the better, and if death stills a shrill voice, better still. I kept remembering what they say about swans singing before they die.

The opera started promisingly. The performing cast came from Italy, and Tosca was represented by a diminutive Japanese lady with a voice whose volume was in inverse proportion to her size. Luckily, the quality was excellent. Would she jump from the ramparts at the appointed time, I wondered ?

The Indian dinner kept re-occurring during Act I and I had little time to be bored since there was considerable action on stage – which included some Italian variation on Morris dancing, but performed in a church. Between this and trying hard not to offend people in my vicinity from the garlic I had consumed at dinner, I was delighted to have made it to the interval without being reprimanded for having done something unforgivable or unacceptable to opera goers.

During the interval I think I looked intelligent even though this was masking a slight disappointment that there wasn’t a single dead body to be seen, so far. My colleagues debated the tonal qualities of two of the baritones and I caught myself – just in time I believe – before making an unwise comment about needing Rosetta stones to decipher what was happening on stage.

Act II saw the action taking place where the officer is eating dinner and Mario is being taken through to a dungeon to be tortured so that he will divulge the whereabouts of the fugitive. A lot of action takes place off-stage so one gathers from the looks on the faces of those actors who are visible, and from noises off-left. Melodramatically, I am instructed that the high point of this act is the aria sung by Tosca pleading for her love, Mario. Indeed, in this production, it was most beautifully sung and it attracted well-deserved and enthusiastic applause.

However, for me the high point came when the curtain came down and I was able to announce to my wife, “Two down, one to go !” I’m not sure quite why, but she found this sort of comment ‘not very suitable’.

Curiously, while the theatre is suffering a relatively poor income, they seem not to consider that the second interval qualifies as a pit-stop. Perhaps it was the turn of those in the orchestra pit ? However, for such amongst the audience as myself who need a ‘divertissement’ during the entertainment, this is a pity.

Act III made up for any perceived lack of action the preceding acts might have displayed. Mario is brought in and sings the regulation duet with Tosca before being led away to face the firing squad after which Tosca – thinking that the execution was faked but discovering that it was for real – runs to the top of the battlements and shoots herself.

It has to be said that this was a slightly disappointing end for Tosca who could have had a bouncy-castle instead of a trampoline. A gunshot is so final and so tidy, don’t you think? Perhaps this is a reflection of the need for touring companies to carry the minimum of stage props. Nevertheless, I had achieved what I set out to see – a pile of dead bodies that quelled the singing somewhat since none of them underwent an immediate resurrection.

Perhaps I shouldn’t give new composers any ideas or they might visit singing ghosts upon us. Hamlet’s father is quite enough, I have always thought.

And so, my character now displays a sheen if not a polish, and I can speak with authority on the fates of Tosca and Mario. Perhaps after seeing Tosca a few more times, I might graduate to that happy estate of being able to produce the names of all participants from the sacristan to the officer’s accomplice. However, I still hanker after the odd botched suicide attempt – it makes opera so much more memorable.

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