User Reviews

My initial reaction to this movie was negative. It took me a while to get used to the technique of showing the singers, musicians and the conductor and then rapidly splicing footage of the singers performing in costume on the set of the opera. However, I think this experiment gradually begins to weave a spell over the audience (consider what Lawrence Olivier did with his film of "HENRY V"). The artificial world of theatre and opera explodes into a reality filled with excitement and vitality.

The orchestra bursts into a throbbing overture that hints at the turmoil that bubbles at the tragic heart of Puccini's opera. Antonio Pappano conducts like a man possessed, he fights and wrestles the score to fiery heights and the music rises with a sweaty passion.

Roberto Alagna sings and acts the role of Cavaradossi with enough conviction, although Placido Domingo did an electrifying job for Giofranco De Bosio in the 1976 movie. Alagna may not have the acting ability of Domingo but he certainly more than makes up for it in the singing department. His natural charisma also shines through in the close-ups that are used frequently to heighten psychological tension.

Ruggero Raimondi plays the part of Scarpia with venom and overtones of violent malice. At times he almost resembles a rapist stalking his next victim. There are shades of his magnificent portrayal of the decadent Don Giovanni (remember the Joseph Losey film?), for example, when he's at the dinner table we see Scarpia admiring his own smirking reflection in the glinting knife. His aria, in this scene, is about how he devours women until his appetite is sated. He proudly boasts about his varied taste in differnt kinds of females and the whole aria is very sinister and disturbing. His acting is splendid and his singing voice is still virile and strong.

Tosca, sung and acted by the earthy Angela Gheorghiu, is first seen as almost bloodless. She is wearing a pale yellow dress and there's no trace of make-up on her anxious face. We can see insecurity and jealousy lined in her face and eyes. She peeks around like a hunted animal which has lost the will to live. This is the way Puccini wrote the part for his heroine and this superb singer delivers a haunting performance. In the latter sections of the opera we see her in a blood-red dress that swirls behind her like a crimson river. Now her eyes are raging black coals that glint with fire and her ruby lips shine with lust. Her cheeks are creamy and flushed and her heaving breast indicates the trembling fear that courses through her lascivious body. Her scene with Scarpia is erotic, the fire leaps and strange shadows dance around the claustrophobic room. This whole scene is extremely erotic, there is a definite sexual spark between the snake-like Scarpia and the radiant sexiness of Tosca. Her voice is tinged with a smouldering huskiness.

The climax, on the top of the gothic castle is beautifully lit, Tosca's red dress still glows and her face has a hue of cold blue (the lighting in this section would please fans who enjoy the works of Mario Bava or Dario Argento). This time we see the tragic frailty in Tosca's eyes, there are hints of suspicion and fear and the close-ups, once again, are very effective in conveying her emotional state.

This film is a very good example of opera being translated over into Art House Cinemas and the experiment of inter-cutting footage of singers in the theatre and the film sets is by-and-large successful and will bear repeated viewings. One hopes more adaptations will follow and thus allow opera the freedom to reach new venues.

Seek out this pulsating film and allow your emotions to run riot with passion and excitement.

I adore opera and classical music, and Tosca has been a favourite of mine since forever. So I was interested in seeing this version, despite hearing some very mixed reviews on it. And while it wasn't perfect, it was interesting and fairly impressive. Is it the best Tosca I've seen, performed on stage or on location? No, not for me. I do prefer the 1992 and 1976 versions, both were wonderful in my view.

Where the 2001 version scores is in its filming, which is really quite unique. There are a lot of interesting camera angles, especially in the climax, and the lighting just adds to the atmosphere. The costumes are just beautiful, especially Tosca's dress in Act 3, and the sets and locations are superb. And I was fine with the black and white, this is better when it is in colour but it was a point of interest in a way. The direction is credible enough, while the conducting and the orchestra are top notch.

I can't mention Tosca without mentioning the music. As fond as I am of La Boheme, Madama Butterfly, Manon Lescaut and Turandot, I personally think Tosca is Puccini's magnum opus. For me, it is certainly his darkest and most complex, and Scarpia if done right is likely to live in the mind for a long while after. I cannot watch any filmed version of Tosca, without watching the "te deum" over and over, it is such a beautiful, stirring and powerful piece of music that does move the story forward. I can also watch the whole of Act 2 again and again, so much happens musically and story-wise and it is just amazing for the ears and the senses.

The story is both dark and tragic yet always compelling. The three main characters of the opera are to me among the best in opera history. There's the passionate and beautiful Floria Tosca, the poignant Caveradossi and then the truly snake-like and machiavellian Baron Scarpia, which is a very difficult role and perhaps the most complex of any "villain" in a Puccini opera, and all add a lot to the opera from its opening chords to the evocative climax.

The performances are fine in general. Spoletta and the Sacristan are good, and the chorus are very well-blended. Angela Gheorghiu is overall wonderful as Tosca, her acting mayn't be the best of the Toscas I've seen but she does have her moments such as in Scarpia's death scene, but when it comes to the look and the voice she is far more impressive. She looks very passionate and beautiful and she does show good chemistry with Alagna and Raimondi, while vocally she gives one of her better performances.

Not to say that he was bad, but Roberto Alagna was one of my two or three disappointments with this version. He looks dashing, and he does sing beautifully particularly in Recondita Armonia (though I agree the ambiance doesn't really do him much service) but his acting does come across as rather cold. Consequently Caveradossi doesn't quite come across as poignant enough which was a little disappointing.

I totally concur though about those who praise Ruggero Raimondi. He is absolutely magnificent as Scarpia. He has a great, quite powerful voice, and acting wise, he is by far the best of the principles. I did notice some traits he put here were similar to those he used in Joseph Losey's Don Giovanni, one minute Scarpia is quite charming, next he is really quite menacing and I admit, I got goosebumps just watching him especially in the "te deum" and when he tells Tosca to give herself to him. In fact, Raimondi is up there as one of my favourite Scarpias, up there with Tito Gobbi and Sherrill Milnes(different but I am quite fond of him).

Other than some of the ambiance and Alagna's acting, my only other disappointment was the lip-synching which was rather inconsistent. Overall though, it was interesting and I quite liked it. 7.5/10 Bethany Cox

A superb cast singing gloriously is compromised by odd and arbitrary aspects of presentation in this film, but memory edits out the nonsense and one is left with the first-class acting and singing in the highly traditional and engaging body of the work. Interestingly, the weakness of Cavaradossi as a character, which is a recognised problem with Puccini's wonderful melodrama,. comes across particularly clearly in this production, while the contrasting strength of Tosca and Scarpia--power versus love, one might say, is outstanding.

A minor moan--no Catholic woman would have gone into a church with uncovered hair in the 19th century--and no Papal policeman would go in with his hat on! But this director has the cultural equivalent of a tin ear.

Although many may dislike this film and its direction, I found that I was really moved and excited by it. I can see how certain aspects of this film may not be to everybody's taste(for example the dodgy outside scenes and the black and white orchestra footage)but to be honest, what does it matter when you have a singer with as beautiful a voice as Angela Gheorghiu! Roberto Alagna's Cavaradossi was a bit wet and pathetic but that could just have been the part. However, Ruggero Raimondi was a truly frightening Scarpia and even when filmed in the recording studio you can see the fire and anger which, in my opinion, is a such a key part of Scarpia's personality. I thought the direction was simple but quite effective at times. I really disliked the outside footage because i felt it wasn't really necessary although it could be a device used to show the seedy side of the situation the characters are in. I found that the close-ups gave you the opportunity to see deep into the personalities of the characters in a way that you can't in an opera house due to the distance between stage and audience. To compare it with another, I have seen parts of Franco Zeffirelli's Tosca staged at ROH in the 60s starring Maria Callas and Tito Gobbi and i can say without doubt that although Callas may have been an exceptional performer, her voice is nothing compared with Angela Gheorghiu-so please, please watch it to have the opportunity to hear the most beautiful voice in the world!

Tosca is more involving in this film version than in most stage performances. That is astounding. Usually, close-ups of opera performances spoil the effect of the music. The acting and looks of most singers detract from their musical performance. Also, melodrama is out and out funny when it's filmed realistically. But in this film the three leads are fine actors and look their parts. Gheorghiu is physically a magnificent diva. It helps that the lip-synching stops at times. For example Tosca and Caravadossi embrace and kiss while the singing continues, as if in their thoughts. They look right and it sounds right. Black and white video of the taping is occasionally intercut with the full color performance. This is jarring but adds to the magic of the final performance, which seemss effortless. Instead of filming the opera realistically the scenes are made theatrical and larger than life by using impressionistic backgrounds. It feels like a stage performance - only you can see everything perfectly. Wonderful! The film makes me want to hear the opera again. The sound system at the movie theater was no substitute for the real thing or for a CD. But I know that the images from this movie will flash up next time I listen.

I was intrigued by the very passionate comments I'd read about this movie, and was curious to see it. I'm not an opera fan, but have a special interest in Tosca, and remember seeing a PBS performance of it twenty or twenty-five years ago. I found this version unexpectedly entertaining; the things that might repel typical opera fans seemed to work well for me, maybe because I could link them to other film performances I'd seen, and made this film not so purely "opera". The outdoor shots, always with a rather shaky moving camera, reminded me of crime reconstructions I'd seen on TV, and also of the dreamlike atmosphere in "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge". They weren't long enough to annoy, and gave a sense of urgency to the film. I didn't even mind the lyrics spoken by the performers, while their voices sang in the background; once again, the non-opera aspect of it was appealing, perhaps because I wasn't completely resolved on seeing *only* an opera. The three main performers all had strong points. Roberto Alagna was good enough as Cavaradossi; I'm not experienced enough at opera to find the faults in his voice that other writers have, though I did notice at one point that he couldn't quite hold his own against the orchestra. I just found his acting to be a little weak for the hero; I'd expect a revolutionary to be a bit more fiery, and he should be able to give Scarpia a run for his money during their confrontation. Perhaps this was the director's interpretation; it would be natural for Cavaradossi to be scared when hauled before Scarpia, but he seemed a bit pathetic when he should have been proud and defiant. Even I could tell that Angela Gheorgiu has a beautiful voice, and never tired of hearing her sing. Her acting was not always to my taste, though; I thought her Tosca came across as coquettish in her scene with Cavaradossi in the church, and I would have preferred a more open-hearted and sincere Tosca at such a moment. She reminded me too much of a professional actress there, and I found her a bit artificial. Her best scenes were with Ruggero Raimondi, and I'll agree with everything everyone else has said about his performance - he was fantastic. That aria at the end of Act I certainly sets the pulse racing, and it's extremely sexy, though the performer is acting almost entirely with his eyes. As unlikely as a Tosca-Scarpia pairing would be, it was really believable in this film, and Gheorgiu really was able to convey conflicted feelings of attraction and repulsion for this terrible man. Raimondi has a real gift for bringing out her best acting - his acting ability is never in question, but she isn't always as convincing. This may not be anyone's "definitive" version of Tosca, but it is quite unique.

Many people seem to hate the style this film took - blending the black and white behind-the-scenes shots of the actors and actresses recording, along with the casually-dressed orchestra itself - in with the gorgeous sets the actual "production" takes place on, but I myself loved it. It took a completely different aspect on my favorite opera and made it more down-to-earth. However, the grainy outside footage was horrendous, and the only thing I have to complain on about this movie.

Angela Gheorghiu's singing was absolutely top-notch, as was a fantastically evil Scarpia. All the singers played their parts marvelously, and led to a very believable performance "on stage." This is personally my favorite production of Tosca, and with the movie's direction, led to a beautiful behind-the-scenes view of the faces behind the faces that work together to create an opera's production itself! Highly recommended from me.

An interesting idea--the director shot Puccini's opera in three different ways--in gorgeous color and in full dress on a soundstage; in black and white of the singers recording the soundtrack in street clothes and some VERY grainy color video of the actual locales in Italy where the opera takes place. It doesn't totally work.

The very grainy footage is off putting and totally unnecessary--luckily, it's not used much. The b+w footage is interesting but distracting at times (and badly shot). The full color playing out is beautiful--wonderful costumes, gorgeous music and singing (of course) but I kept dozing off.

The story is very predictable and the opera remains stage-bound...it isn't opened up which might have helped. It also moves very slowly. Of the three leads only one is good--Ruggero Raimondi as the villain. Roberto Alagna and Angela Gheorghis look absolutely beautiful and those voices, but their acting is only so-so.

A must-see for opera lovers, but if you're not an opera fan (like me) it's slow-going.

I'd read some bad reviews of this film, and didn't expect to enjoy it. For me Tosca is such a great opera that I couldn't imagine how technical trickery could do anything but spoil it. However, director Jacquot has actually enhanced it at times, although the grainy pictures of outside locations didn't work for me.

The film begins with black and white film of the singers recording the sound track, and occasionally this device is used during the opera itself, but I found it interesting and it didn't break the spell of the story in any way. In fact, when Ruggero Raimondi stood up to record his entrance he looked just as frightening as he did when acting!

Allowing the singers to either talk or stand silently thinking while their arias or recitatives were played was a great idea. For me it worked best when Raimondi's Baron Scarpia was watching Angela Gheorghin's Tosca as he tried to poison her mind with jealousy so that she would lead him to her lover Mario Cavaradossi. This could be because out of the three leads, it's Raimondi who has the best screen presence. He not only looks right, he can act as well, and although Angela Gheorghin looked beautiful, I was disappointed in her acting skills. For me her Tosca lacked passion and she seemed more interested in looking lovely than reacting appropriately.

Her scenes with Scarpia were her best scenes, mainly because Roberto Alagna failed to generate any hint of passion or sexuality, which was a huge disappointment. Even his singing sounded as though he was in an echo chamber, which made me suspect that he was underpowered. Maybe it was a technical fault, but it was irritating.

It was an involving film, and the sumptious costumes and sheer brilliance of Raimondi's singing and acting meant that it had moments of genius. Overall it was a great film for me, and one that I can't wait to see again. The golden couple of Gheorghin and Alagna didn't quite live up to their reputations, but Ruggero Raimondi certainly made up for it. Even if you're not an opera lover, it's worth watching this film for his performance alone, and if you are an opera lover then see it as soon as you can for the whole production.

The key to this film may be that it is really just a by-product of the much praised, audio recording: a bit like a promotional video for a pop record. Antonio Pappano gives a sumptuous reading of the score and, in black and white, we see brief excerpts from the recording session with Pappano conducting the orchestra and chorus of Covent Garden. The film that has been tagged onto this recording is quite a low budget affair that is very obviously studio-bound. The few external shots are in grainy sepia.

Angela Gheorghiu's Tosca ranks amongst the greatest interpretations of this role. Her voice has a soothing timbre, it is beautifully controlled and it sounds effortless. It also looks effortless but that, of course is because she is miming to her studio recording. The most convincing scenes are the sizzling love duets in the first and third acts, with Roberto Alagna as Cavaradossi. They really do make a sexy couple. Alagna's light tenor is quite successful in this role but he is ill-served by the artificial ambiance for his big arias. Both Recondite Armonia, set in a church, and E Lucevan Le Stella set on the castle ramparts have too much added echo, making him sound like a crossover artist.

The best acting performance comes from Ruggero Raimondi as a very understated villain Scarpia. He sings with quiet menace which, unfortunately, makes it all too obvious that he is miming. The triumphant procession into church is omitted in this film, presumably for reasons of economy. Scarpia's anguished cry of "Tosca, you make me forget God", is, in this production, just a whimper.

A special word for Ms Gheorghiu's stunt double: he looks very fetching in his red robe as he leaps over the ramparts.

Notoriously popular but also one of the great challenges to successfully perform,"Tosca" is an intimate, bluntly melodramatic opera, that Puccini elevates to the proportions of Greek tragedy. It requires of the three leads extreme vocal and acting talent, where if lacking, the whole thing becomes trite and can come across as more than a little facile. So why would a major composer even consider putting pen to page to bring this (even for it's time) an outdated star vehicle to opera? The source material was a play written to showcase Sarah Bernhardt. But a successful production reveals what Puccini saw in the material: the consequences of jealousy, the power of corrupt politics and how it leads to rebellion, how singular love and lust can both illuminate and destroy, and what the abandonment of faith for, in this case, obsession can lead. There is murder, suicide, torture, jealousy, loyalty to friend and lover, devotion, and blasphemy. These are all themes worthy of a playwright/composer and his audience to consider and Puccini's mastery of consolidating all of this with such efficiency is why it is one of the masterworks of the operatic canon.

While it's only a plot with 3 characters: two lovers and a villain who is focused on his erotic obsession with one of the lovers and a political enemy of the other. The opera holds one of the penultimate accomplishments in opera. The first act is basically the set-up for what happens in the next two. We're introduced to all the characters who already have a long history with one another, and Puccini masterfully fills us in on all of that with some of his most soaring music. But the majority of the first act is spare of anything we call "grand" opera. It's set is an empty cathedral, the characters are revealed through solo and duet, but it ends what becomes one of the most elaborate, and perhaps my favorite scene in all of opera.

In the final minutes of Act I. Puccini pulls out all the stops available to a composer, both with the orchestra and setting. The stage fills with all the spectacle the Catholic church provides. Every instrument available to orchestration is thrown in: a large chorus, a large organ, bells of all sorts while canons explode in the background. The "Te Deum" is set in counterpoint to villain's machinations ending in a breath-taking sacrilege initiated by a lie he's told to foment he destruction of the lovers so he can move in and satisfy his carnal desire ending with replacing God with his object of lust and hopefully executing his political rival. It's an unparalleled moment on the stage.

So, in this production, it's rather bold to throw all of that out the window, at least visually, and focus solely on the face of the villain in ever tightening close-up while the orchestra and chorus (and canon) boom in the background. Perhaps this is justifiable by focusing solely on the character's singular motive which has disastrous consequence for all three principals, but you wonder with having the luxury of using all the space available to filmmakers, when--on the stage--designers and directors are so limited in presenting this epic moment. It's powerful, but I wish Benoît Jacquot had gone with the more obvious choice. He didn't, but the rest of the production has such strength provided by the talents of the performers, orchestra and art direction, it's perhaps unfair to hang too much on this one, what I consider, mistake.

It's particularly strange because he succeeds with a gorgeous moment in the beginning of Act III. Where a shepherd's solo is filmed from an arial wide shot, in the darkness before dawn set in the fields outside the walls of Rome, illuminated by a single lantern as the shepherds and his flock wanders in the dark. It's a wonderful, imaginative moment, but why "open this up" to such vast space, and eliminate the spectacle of the "Te Deum"? Just to be contrary isn't really a good answer.

On the stage, we're given a lot of internal thoughts sung at full throat in front of the other characters. And that's always an awkward convention that seems more and more at odds with modern realism. Jacquot visually let's those internal thoughts stay in the character's heads by overdubbing. As well, his use of spoken dialogue to emphasize key moments which preface them being sung, rankles purists, but I thought it worked. Some of the visual conventions are already dated, using over or undersaturated and processed film to "open" up the visuals (for instance, showing a full moon when it's being sung about, or a cottage and garden with a water well, that we don't ever see on the stage). Even if the photography for those moments weren't so dated graphically--there's a long sequence where scenes we've seen are run in reverse meant to emphasize how inevitable the tragic consequences of various choices made by the characters led to what's coming and seals their fate--is unnecessary. It's not a long opera or even a film, so we don't need a redundant "rewind" of what we've just seen.

What is marvelous is the use of real locations, where only necessary elements of architecture aren't draped/masked in black, silhouetting the characters, and reducing the unnecessary detail that results from putting a stage play and shooting them in the real places. I thought that was a brilliant and inventive, and the best solution for moving action in a stage setting to a real location.

I can't fault any of the singing or acting, which is really what propels this piece out melodrama. The orchestra too is marvelous. The costuming elaborate and at the same time works in these real settings. In fact, the costume Tosca wears in the Acts II & III should be the model for any future production.

Is this the perfect "Tosca" on film? Well, for now, I think it is. But we need a definitive one where the Director doesn't give into excess (where this material begs for restraint). And perhaps the real question is: Does opera need to exist outside of the opera house? It's the amalgamation of all the performing and visual arts and it may be the one form that can't be transferred, at least meaningfully, to film.

Angela Gheorghiu, Roberto Alagna, and Ruggero Raimondi are fabulous singers doing fabulous work here. The London Royal Opera House orchestra is great too. Unfortunately, the the movie is just repulsive! Repellent! It's so bad it's not even bad-funny. The camera swoops around inappropriately. The sets are tableaux floating in space. The action abruptly cuts away to the orchestra and singers actually doing the recording, shot in black and white in some basement somewhere. And then we're back to live action again as soon as the good part is finished.

Actors sort of magically float out of the gloom that would be the wings in a theater, and then drift back into it when they go offstage. The singers, good as they are, are no movie actors. Angela spends most of the two hours with a weird grin on her face. Ruggiero is so oily-evil that I worried he might slide out of the frame at any moment--but it's oily-evil in some kind of Star Trek foreign planet kind of way, not the evil of palaces and politics.

If you rent it, super-glue your eyes shut as you hit Play.

Given the prohibitive costs of shooting and marketing a film - any film, on any subject - any director rash enough to try a "filmed opera" faces a double challenge. It is no longer enough to make an Opera Film: the sort popular in Italy in the 40s and 50s, when opera still enjoyed a wide audience. It is now necessary to make an Opera Film For People Who Hate Opera: one with enough populist appeal to win over millions of film-goers who are either indifferent to opera or can't bear it.

It's a well-nigh impossible trick, and only a handful of directors have come anywhere close to pulling it off. Still, I defy even the most tone-deaf of operaphobes to watch Powell and Pressburger's 1951 Tales of Hoffmann or Losey's 1979 Don Giovanni or Zeffirelli's 1982 La Traviata, and not adore every moment! As for Benoit Jacquot's new film of Tosca...well, he seems to have gone one better than all the others, and turned out the first-ever Opera Movie By A Director Who Obviously Hates Opera, So Why Did He Bother In The First Place?

With its thunderous blood-and-sex soaked libretto and romantically hysterical score, Giacomo Puccini's Tosca is perhaps the greatest melodrama - spoken or sung - ever to hit the stage. As TS Eliot once wrote of a novel by Wilkie Collins; "It has no merit beyond melodrama, but it has every merit that melodrama can have." No piece of musical theatre on earth is less suited to the odious cod-Brechtian 'distancing devices' that Jacquot employs in his deluded attempts to seem avant-garde. If you cannot wallow in the heart-thumpingly overwrought melodramatics of Tosca, you should not go near them at all.

So what can be the logic of splicing in black-and-white footage of the high-priced cast as they record the vocal score? Or those awful jiggly, grainy shots of those monuments in Rome where the action takes place? Or forcing Roberto Alagna and Angela Gheorgiu - the reigning Golden Couple on the international opera scene - to speak the dialogue 'live' while singing it on the soundtrack? This sort of hollow trickery can only outrage opera fans, while leaving the vast majority of the public as bewildered as they ever were.

So Jacquot is both a Philistine and a moron, and his film should be an out-and-out disaster BUT...lacking even the courage of his own puny convictions, most of the time he forgets to be Post-Modern and just gives us the melodrama straight. The result is nothing short of miraculous. As Floria Tosca, an opera diva struggling to save her lover from the clutches of an evil Chief of Police, Angela Gheorghiu is - vocally and dramatically - a rival to our memory of Maria Callas. With her torrent of raven hair, triumphal cheekbones and sulphurous eyes, her screen presence is an echo of Sigourney Weaver.

A pity that her most erotic love interest is not the romantic and revolutionary painter Mario Cavaradossi. (Roberto Alagna, aka Mr. Gheorghiu, lags far behind his wife in vocal skills and shows not the faintest sign of talent as an actor.) Rather, it is the evil police chief Baron Scarpia who deserves to win her heart. Not only a veteran of opera films - including Losey's sumptuous Don Giovanni - Ruggero Raimondi has also acted 'straight' roles, notably as a dotty French nobleman obsessed with immortality in the 1983 Alain Resnais film La Vie Est Un Roman. With his haggard eyes and glittering black greatcoat, Raimondi has an almost vampiric quality. Perhaps the sexiest, most seductive screen villain since Basil Rathbone.

And so - irony of ironies - this Opera Film By A Director Who Hates Opera turns out to be a near-classic, a close rival to Zeffirelli or Losey or Powell-Pressburger. Let's just hope that nobody ever gives Jacquot another opera to direct. Next time, he might really wreck it! Let's hope, on her next project, that Angela Gheorghiu wields her ever-increasing clout and hires a film-maker who actually knows what opera is. Isn't Gerard Corbiau in need of a job? Now that I'd love to see.

David Melville

There's not so many things I can say about it. My favorite opera because of the dramatic and romantic story with the incredible romantic music of Puccini, three strong characters create a matchless atmosphere. Ruggero Raimondi is excellent with his performances on vocal and acting, Angela Gheorghiu have a "dolce" voice and she uses her face good enough but she uses her body some exaggerated in some parts, Raimondi and Gheorghiu are also very suitable physically for unmerciful Scarpia and beautiful Floria Tosca. Roberto Alagna's vocal performance is good. A movie good enough for who loves opera and Puccini, not a perfect directing but generally i liked the movie maybe because of the influence of Puccini's music with some memorable scenes like Scarpia's aria and praying at the end of the first act.

it is one of films who seduce for the nuances of performance. because Angela Gheorghiu, Roberto Alagna and Ruggero Raimondi are the inspired options for this splendid show. not only for artistic virtues but for rare science to give impression to discover Puccini work for the first time. because the duel between Tosca and Scarpia is key for a lot of revelation about the opera profound senses. because Alagna does not only a fresh Cavaradossi but that mixture between love, heroism and sacrifice who in rare situations can be not fake. it is the version of Tosca who does it becomes my favorite opera. maybe it is not the best. but it is an admirable work, maybe against its direction errors. and it is new proof for the great force of acting by Angela Gheorghiu ( sure, as Romanian, I am one of her fans ).

She was the main motif to see this adaptation. Andit is a profound beautiful Tosca, first, for the fine way to translate the emotion and the drama in a sensual, seductive, provocative manner. More than an admirable show, a fine demonstration of the art and wise use of the generosity of a great opera. Not less, one of splendid performances of Angela Gheorghiu.