Benoit Jacquot ("School of Flesh") directs this stylistically challenging cinematic rendering of Giacomo Puccini's famous 1899 opera with an appropriately powerful performance by opera diva Angela Gheorgiu.
Tosca (2002)
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Reviews Counted: 37
Fresh: 24
Rotten:13
Average Rating: 6.3/10
Theatrical Release:Jul 12, 2002 Limited
Synopsis: French director Benoit Jacquot (A SINGLE GIRL) adapts the famous opera by Giacomo Puccini in his film TOSCA. The stunningly dramatic opera stars--Angela Gheorghiu as Floria Tosca, Roberto Alagna as... French director Benoit Jacquot (A SINGLE GIRL) adapts the famous opera by Giacomo Puccini in his film TOSCA. The stunningly dramatic opera stars--Angela Gheorghiu as Floria Tosca, Roberto Alagna as Mario Cavaradossi, and Ruggero Raimondi as Baron Scarpia--steal the show with their intense vocal range and fiery acting. The film cuts back and forth between black and white photography that shows the singers and a full orchestra recording the opera in a studio, and color photography that shows the costumed presentation, act by act, with several different sets. Mario (Alagna) is painting a portrait on the wall of the chapel, inspired by a fair-haired beauty who he has just seen praying below. When his girlfriend, the possessive Diva Tosca (Gheorghui) pays him a surprise visit, he must reassert his love for her, trying to ease her worries and her jealousy at seeing the painting. However, that night when a prisoner escapes, Mario is a suspected accomplice and he is wanted by the police. The evil Baron Scarpia (Raimondi) lies to Tosca, telling her that Mario ran off with the fair-haired beauty, and using her jealousy to get her to aid the police in his capture. This film was included in the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema 2002 festival organized by the Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York City. [More]
Starring: Angela Gheorghiu, Roberto Alagna, Ruggero Raimondi
Starring: Angela Gheorghiu, Roberto Alagna, Ruggero Raimondi
Director: Benoit Jacquot
Director: Benoit Jacquot
Composer: Giacomo Puccini
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Reviews for Tosca
You would be better off investing in the worthy EMI recording that serves as the soundtrack, or the home video of the 1992 Malfitano-Domingo production.
With three excellent principal singers, a youthful and good-looking diva and tenor and richly handsome locations, it's enough to make you wish Jacquot had left well enough alone and just filmed the opera without all these distortions of perspective.
The performance is curiously cold, surprisingly artificial and removed from the very passion embedded deeply within the score and libretto.
Definitely not a movie for everyone, but should please fans of the classic opera.
From the trembling fury of Gheorgiu's Tosca to the penetrating stare of Raimondi's Scarpia, this Tosca blazes with passion. At its best, it's sublime.
It is impossible to imagine wanting to see Jacquot's film more than once, if that.
If you can read the subtitles (the opera is sung in Italian) and you like 'Masterpiece Theatre' type costumes, you'll enjoy this movie.
The film just might turn on many people to opera, in general, an art form at once visceral and spiritual, wonderfully vulgar and sublimely lofty -- and as emotionally grand as life.
Passion, lip-synching, tragedy, and lots of really really high notes. For me, this opera isn't a favorite, so it's a long time before the fat lady sings.
The director sees the strengths of Alagna and Gheorghiu and plays them for every cinematic moment.
Altogether, this is successful as a film, while at the same time being a most touching reconsideration of the familiar masterpiece.
Opera on film is never satisfactory. The art demands live viewing. The innate theatrics that provide its thrills and extreme emotions lose their luster when flattened onscreen.
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