# The Ending of Tosca



## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

I'm always defending and promoting Puccini. I think his critics often have no idea what they're talking about, and simply assume that because he wasn't just another Modernist, he was a conservative, bourgeois composer bent on making money and not masterpieces. His popularity is the only and final evidence used to damn him. (Nevermind that Wagner, Verdi, and Mozart, all respectable, are also extremely popular.)

So it's rankled me for years that there was one big anti-Puccini argument that I kind of agreed with. I couldn't shake the feeling that the critics were right about the ending of _Tosca_. I think it was Kerman again who said that the orchestra plays "the first thing that comes into its head." I didn't want to agree, but I couldn't come up with an alternative interpretation that satisfied me. Finally, I think I've hit on a reason that it the reprise of E lucevan le stelle makes sense.

Most critics say the opera should have ended with a reprise of Scarpia's music, showing that he dominates, and creating symmetry with the opening of Act I. He begins the opera in control, and ends it in control. it's a kind of fatalistic parable on this reading: Scarpia and the forces of lust and sadism he represents always have and always will dominate human existence. Well, that sounds interesting, and I couldn't help but agree for along time: That would have been better.

The way to square the actual ending of _Tosca_ with the opera involves a different conception of the structure of the work. Instead of three equal acts, we have to see it as two unequal parts: Acts I and II are a unit, and Act III is a separate unit. This is suggested by something in the dramatic structure that's always bothered me. _Tosca_ is known as the ultimate operatic thriller: Unrelenting action and drama that moves forward breathlessly. Until Act III. Act III is incredibly static. Virtually nothing happens until the very end, and we already knew that's what was going to happen! Tosca is doomed to fail in rescuing Cavaradossi, and we know it. Instead of action, Act III is made up of a dawn prelude, E lucevan le stelle, some duets between Tosca and Cavaradossi, and the execution and the jump, which take place in almost no time at all. So it's a static act with a huge burst of violent action at the end. Why?

Well, it then occurred to me that the series of arias and duets in Act III are all essentially fantasies and remembrances. Cavaradossi thinks about his love of Tosca, then she comes and tells him about how she killed Scarpia, then they fantasize about escaping for 20 minutes, then she has her delusional scene of watching him get shot and thinking it's all an act, then reality hits and she jumps. Now, the only moment of reality in Act III is the beginning, when Cavaradossi says, "E muoio disperato, e non ho amato mai tanto la vita". He's going to die, he knows it, and the tragedy is that the first section of his aria is the moment when his "sogno d'amore" is most real to him. Well, then his "sogno d'amore" reasserts itself as Tosca reappears, and then they both share in a collective "sogno d'amore" for the next 20 minutes, at which point reality reasserts itself for good and the music of its dissipation, the climax of E lucevan le stelle, recurs. In other words, Tosca at that moment is reliving the moment of reality that Cavaradossi experienced as he processed the full weight of what he was losing in E lucevan le stelle. Thus, the music of that realization recurs. The ambiguity is that she cries out, Scarpia, before God! Thus, she could be attempting to prolong the fantasy.

If this is anywhere near correct, which I'm not certain of, but it seems plausible, it means that there is a dramatically coherent reason for the ending of _Tosca_. Maybe it's a better or worse ending than the one the critics want. But what it definitely _isn't_ is cheap sensationalism unmotivated by the drama.

For more on how Puccini used such subtle and psychologically intriguing methods to construct _Tosca_, see this cool discussion between James Levine and James Conlon:


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Another thoughtful essay to think about. Thanks. I'd have to say I'm one of those who feels that the opera should probably end with Scarpia's motif thundering forth, but I can sympathize with Puccini's preference for pathos over sheer grimness and horror. I don't think your explanation would occur to anyone witnessing the opera, but they might at least think of Cavaradossi. Perhaps Puccini wanted to convey nothing more complex than the idea that Tosca, in her last moments, was thinking of him too.

It was interesting to hear in that video that Puccini claimed he needed the specifics of a story and libretto to inspire him to compose. Wagner said much the same thing - that he was a "mediocre composer" without a great poetic idea to inspire him. It strikes me that this is a specific sort of creative imagination, one characterized by "cross-domain mapping," as psycholgists call the brain's tendency to make symbols and forms originating in one sensory-perceptual mode stand for those in another (e. g. translating poetry into music, music into lines and colors, etc.). This sort of mind evidently makes for good opera composers.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Blah blah, blah!
You have destroyed me!!! That's right! life was simple...easy till your post. 
And how exciting it was to me that Tosca jumped to the strains of "E lucevan le stelle" UNTIL I read your above post and discovered something I never before knew. And it bored itself into my brain and I suddenly started picturing Tosca screaming, "O Scarpia, avanti a dio!" to the strains of Scarpia's theme and POW!!!! what a difference of a dramatic ending and _why didn't Puccini do it?_ Why?? -- Maybe this is the main reason Toscanini didn't have that much respect for him. Who knows?
(Shades of Mozart being compelled to end on a happy uplifting note to satisfy the King in _Don Giovanni_ instead of that more powerful ending with the Commendatore).
I simply adore Puccini -- and his music is very much my favorite because it has a way of captivating my heart like no other composer's can do, despite the eggheads' defense that he took the easy way out.
Of course I do admit that I turn _Turandot_ off the minute Liu affects her demise. But I admit it is mainly because I detest the character of the macho Calaf who should have gone with his Dad the minute Liu took her life. (Yes yes I know -- it's only a fairy tale.)
So do a turnabout and decide that Cavaradossi's aria was the better one because you found a new rationalization. Frankly, I like your old one better.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Oh come off it! Psychological subtleties! Tosca is a 'shabby little shocker' and was always intended to be. It brings in the crowds and delights the audiences. She kills the villain but in the end finds he has outwitted her. So we find an empty stage. And everyone claps and cheers! What on earth do we want to bring psychology into a tale of romance, lust, torture, jealousy and betrayal?


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Oh, I must disagree with the above post.
I found vivalagentanova's post (like most all of her/his?) posts, to be interesting, provocative and enlightening, and even though I was surprised by the new message it conveyed (and to me not for the better), I preferred his/her original way of thinking about it.
And I do believe that there is plenty of psychological study to be had between Scarpia and Tosca in that "shabby little shocker" because it is much, much more than just that!


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

In reply to post #4

Give us all a break and let those who want to discuss one of life’s pleasures do so without your continual carping. Your other half must have the patience of a saint if you go on like this every day.


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## VitellioScarpia (Aug 27, 2017)

Vivalagentenuova's post is an enlightening one and its suggest quite a plausible theory.

Puccini is a much more complex composer than many critics give him credit. They confuse his lifestyle choices with his richness as a composer not unlike with many composers who get short rift because we may disagree or not with their personal choices. I believe that the critic who coined the "shabby little shocker" dismissal was a snob who maligned what he was unable to "hear" because of his limitations. Leyla Gencer's quip on the cool critical reception of the Dialogues of the Carmelites after the prima in 1957 is appropriate here: _La critica non capisce mai_.

I suggest the book by Michele Girardi "Puccini: His International Art" for a very illuminating assessment of Puccini's opus.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Barbebleu said:


> Your other half must have the patience of a saint if you go on like this every day.


Just out of curiosity, are you talking about partners or multiple personalities?


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

amfortas said:


> Just out of curiosity, are you talking about partners or multiple personalities?


Either will suffice unto the day:lol:


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

If *Tosca* hadn't jumped, she'd be imprisoned; besides, she wouldn't have wanted to live without *Cavaradossi*. I think it is appropriate to sound the strains of his aria, since she sacrificed everything for him. _O Scarpia, avanti a Dio_ is her professed belief *Scarpia* will get his juts desserts and has _not_ won - sounding his theme at the end would suggest he had. 
My two cents...


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Vivalagentenuova's view, as I understand it, works for me: Tosca, like Cavaradossi before her, valuing life most at the moment she has to lose it. Thus the ending is poignant, bittersweet, as opposed to just stark and bleak if we were to hear the Scarpia theme instead.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

amfortas said:


> Just out of curiosity, are you talking about partners or multiple personalities?


If there's another one, might we hope it gives the present one a good thrashing?


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

MAS said:


> If *Tosca* hadn't jumped, she'd be imprisoned; besides, she wouldn't have wanted to live without *Cavaradossi*. I think it is appropriate to sound the strains of his aria, since she sacrificed everything for him. _O Scarpia, avanti a Dio_ is her professed belief *Scarpia* will get his juts desserts and has _not_ won - sounding his theme at the end would suggest he had.
> My two cents...


This is very similar to my view. I've never felt the ending of Tosca to be anything other than appropriate. However, when I first came across the idea that the opera should end with the Scarpia ending I was quite a fan of it. However, there is an irony here. Puccini is accused of taking the easy route of writing appealing melodies and 'hit' arias, but then criticised when he does something out of the ordinary and unexpected. Can he ever win?

I've always found the ending to have a certain pathos and poignancy to it. Cavaradossi's aria is about losing the love of his life and is similar to Lensky's aria in that it has the pathos of a young man who knows or senses that his time is up. At the end of the opera all the three main characters are dead and all have lost. Scarpia's greedy, selfish hedonism doesn't allow for any winners. There's something just as tragically sad about this as there is about the hopeless young man who is tragically killed at a young age. I much prefer the pathos of the loss filled ending, than a dramatic for dramatic's sake finish, which is what the Scarpia theme blazing out would end up being.

N.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

MAS said:


> If *Tosca* hadn't jumped, she'd be imprisoned; besides, she wouldn't have wanted to live without *Cavaradossi*. I think it is appropriate to sound the strains of his aria, since she sacrificed everything for him. _O Scarpia, avanti a Dio_ is her professed belief *Scarpia* will get his juts desserts and has _not_ won - sounding his theme at the end would suggest he had.
> My two cents...


If she hadn't have jumped she'd have been hanged not imprisoned.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

nina foresti said:


> Oh, I must disagree with the above post.
> I found vivalagentanova's post (like most all of her/his?) posts, to be interesting, provocative and enlightening, and even though I was surprised by the new message it conveyed (and to me not for the better), I preferred his/her original way of thinking about it.
> And I do believe that there is plenty of psychological study to be had between Scarpia and Tosca in that "shabby little shocker" because it is *much, much more than just that!*


Well how is it much, much more?


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

The Conte said:


> However, there is an irony here. Puccini is accused of taking the easy route of writing appealing melodies and 'hit' arias, but then criticised when he does something out of the ordinary and unexpected. Can he ever win?


I know, right! The literature on him is amazing, but often not in the good way. More recent volumes like Girardi's and Burton's are good, and Ashbrook is good too, but people like Osborne do exactly that: they call Puccini shallow and obvious, but then there are all these moments that are not obvious, like the ending of _Tosca_, the ending of _Madama Butterfly_, the ending of _La boheme_, the Minnie-Johnson love theme recurring during the chase in Act III of _Fanciulla_, and they just go, "Well, it doesn't make any obvious sense to us, so it was probably just arbitrary and it's more evidence that he was stupid." It's like a comedy. Anything he does that's clear is "obvious and shallow" and anything he does that ambiguous is "arbitrary and meaningless". They go, "It's not clear what Puccini meant by..." Isn't it literally your job to figure it out? If you can't interpret his operas, why are you writing a book about Puccini? You're exactly right, Conte: he can't win!

I think the problem is that a certain school of critic just can't say anything good about him because he's just not what they were taught to think a great composer of the early 20th century is. A great composer of that period was dabbling in Modernism, not out there reinventing the operatic tradition from the inside with a powerful and popular blend of the German and Italian traditions with some French Impressionism and totally original dramatic conceptions thrown in. He was not understood by his contemporaries, and he was too radical for the traditionalists and to traditional for the radicals of his own day. But he was radical: A verismo-Impressionistic response to _Tristan_ set in the American West! A self-parodying meta-theatre tragicomedy! Three one act operas of different genres forming a kind of _Divine Comedy_! A mock epic orientalist symbolic pageant with nihilistic commedia dell'arte comic relief!

I think was just so relentlessly good at making his operas enjoyable that people don't stop to consider how creative and original they actually are. He's taken for granted as an opera composer. But he was beloved of Ravel, who said when he had heard that Puccini died, "He was our brother." Manuel Rosenthal also told a story about how, when he suggested that he didn't like Puccini during one of his lessons with Ravel, Ravel became angry, went to the piano, and played him most of _Tosca_ pointing out original chord progressions and calling him a great composer.



Woodduck said:


> Perhaps Puccini wanted to convey nothing more complex than the idea that Tosca, in her last moments, was thinking of him too.


This is one option I've considered. I think it's probably partially true, and my current view is sort of a more complicated version of it. I think the main reason it's not 100% satisfactory is that her last words are about Scarpia. If she's thinking of Cavaradossi, why does she talk about Scarpia? It could be that her thoughts and words are different, but why? That's part of what led me down the road I eventually took.



Woodduck said:


> It was interesting to hear in that video that Puccini claimed he needed the specifics of a story and libretto to inspire him to compose. Wagner said much the same thing - that he was a "mediocre composer" without a great poetic idea to inspire him. It strikes me that this is a specific sort of creative imagination, one characterized by "cross-domain mapping," as psycholgists call the brain's tendency to make symbols and forms originating in one sensory-perceptual mode stand for those in another (e. g. translating poetry into music, music into lines and colors, etc.). This sort of mind evidently makes for good opera composers.


Yes, if you read Puccini's letters it's mostly him despondently nagging his librettists to send him something he can use because he's terribly bored and unhappy unless he's working but he can't work without exactly the right text. And then the next letter is, "Thank you, you've saved my life! These lines are perfect! Work is proceeding!" And then the next one is, "I've realized this won't work at all and am in total despair again. Make the 47 changes we discussed." It's all pretty amusing.

I think this idea of the relationship between poetry and music for these two composers is fascinating. I think it might just be why they are my favorites and why I see so many similarities in their approaches, even if they have very different personalities and aesthetics (Wagner was obviously much more literate in philosophy etc.). They're the two composers that most effectively create the inner and outer worlds of the story in music, and all the many subtle changes that take place. They're the two I can sit back and know that, if I'm perceptive enough, everything I need will be presented to me. Nothing is extraneous.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

David:
I do not happen to be one who believes that just because Tosca was brought up by nuns doesn't mean that she did not have inner feelings of a different sort that conflicted with her "Vissi d'arte"words which sit more on the side of religious teachings only.
I do happen to believe that we are made up of much more than just irreligious, devout, kind, evil, smart, etc.
We are all a complicated mixture of feelings and beliefs exacerbated by outside influences.
Just my personal belief.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

nina foresti said:


> David:
> I do not happen to be one who believes that just because Tosca was brought up by nuns doesn't mean that she did not have inner feelings of a different sort that conflicted with her "Vissi d'arte"words which sit more on the side of religious teachings only.
> I do happen to believe that we are made up of much more than just irreligious, devout, kind, evil, smart, etc.
> We are all a complicated mixture of feelings and beliefs exacerbated by outside influences.
> Just my personal belief.


Of course we are. But those things are obvious to all in the opera as it stands. Her religious beliefs don't stop her having an affair with a freethinker quite obviously.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Re post #16

Lovely post. Thoroughly enjoyable read.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

DavidA said:


> Of course we are. But those things are obvious to all in the opera as it stands. Her religious beliefs don't stop her having an affair with a freethinker quite obviously.


Then what are you referring to when you ask me to expound on my words "much, much more than that?" I thought I made my post quite clear. And I don't happen to believe that those things I mentioned are "obvious to all in the opera as it stands".


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

The Conte said:


> This is very similar to my view. I've never felt the ending of Tosca to be anything other than appropriate. However, when I first came across the idea that the opera should end with the Scarpia ending I was quite a fan of it. However, there is an irony here. Puccini is accused of taking the easy route of writing appealing melodies and 'hit' arias, but then criticised when he does something out of the ordinary and unexpected. Can he ever win?
> 
> I've always found the ending to have a certain pathos and poignancy to it. Cavaradossi's aria is about losing the love of his life and is similar to Lensky's aria in that it has the pathos of a young man who knows or senses that his time is up. At the end of the opera all the three main characters are dead and all have lost. Scarpia's greedy, selfish hedonism doesn't allow for any winners. There's something just as tragically sad about this as there is about the hopeless young man who is tragically killed at a young age. I much prefer the pathos of the loss filled ending, than *a dramatic for dramatic's sake finish, which is what the Scarpia theme blazing out would end up being.*
> 
> N.


Ending with Scarpia's harmonies wouldn't be dramatics for their own sake. It would make a statement that Puccini didn't want to make, a statement quite uncompromisingly grim but plausible and compelling nonetheless.

It's arguable that Scarpia is the real star of the show, the strongest character in the opera: Joseph Kerman (who's currently taking a drubbing here but had plenty of insights to offer) felt that Scarpia's spirit, if that word can be applied to him, pervaded the work. I'm at least part of the way with that, as I find the protagonists not awfully interesting; no singer has made me care about Cavaradossi, and it takes a Callas to bring to Tosca a stature the character as written probably doesn't warrant (I'd love to have seen Muzio do it). Scarpia, though, is a gruesomely compelling presence, and Puccini achieves that without inspiring in us a scintilla of sympathy (making Scarpia different from, say, Wagner's villains, who beneath their excessive pride and evil actions are wounded souls with grievances that make them perversely noble, at least in their own eyes).

As far as the music is concerned, the chromatic harmony conspicuous in _Tosca_'s score is surely a Scarpian miasma, an odor of corruption, much as dissolving chromatics represent dark magic and the agony of body and soul in Wagner's _Parsifal_ (echoes of which I hear in _Tosca_). Scarpia's motif is the first and last thing we hear in act 1 of _Tosca,_ he moves the action of acts 1 and 2 with diabolical cunning and irresistible force, and even in death his grip on the fate of the hapless lovers proves secure. Giving him the last musical word would have made perfect musical and dramatic sense.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Ending with Scarpia's harmonies wouldn't be dramatics for their own sake. It would make a statement that Puccini didn't want to make, a statement quite uncompromisingly grim but plausible and compelling nonetheless.
> 
> It's arguable that Scarpia is the real star of the show, the strongest character in the opera: Joseph Kerman (who's currently taking a drubbing here but had plenty of insights to offer) felt that Scarpia's spirit, if that word can be applied to him, pervaded the work. I'm at least part of the way with that, as I find the protagonists not awfully interesting; no singer has made me care about Cavaradossi, and it takes a Callas to brings to Tosca a stature the character as written probably doesn't warrant (I'd love to have seen Muzio do it). Scarpia, though, is a gruesomely compelling presence, and Puccini achieves that without inspiring in us a scintilla of sympathy (making Scarpia different from, say, Wagner's villains, who beneath their excessive pride and evil actions are wounded souls with grievances that make them perversely noble, at least in their own eyes).
> 
> As far as the music is concerned, the chromatic harmony conspicuous in _Tosca_'s score is surely a Scarpian miasma, an odor of corruption, much as dissolving chromatics represent dark magic and the agony of body and soul in Wagner's _Parsifal_ (echoes of which I hear in _Tosca_). Scarpia's motif is the first and last thing we hear in act 1 of _Tosca,_ he moves the action of acts 1 and 2 with diaboloical cunning and irresistible force, and even in death his grip on the fate of the hapless lovers proves secure. Giving him the last musical word would have made perfect musical and dramatic sense.


I agree with you in part. Yes, Scarpia has a presence that hovers over the piece and his theme would have made perfect sense if Puccini had choose to end the opera with it. However, what I meant by dramatics for dramatic's sake (bad English and a poor choice of words on my part) was that it would have been a rather bombastic ending and I much prefer the more subtle (and still emotionally effective) choice that Puccini made.

N.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

The Conte said:


> I agree with you in part. Yes, Scarpia has a presence that hovers over the piece and his theme would have made perfect sense if Puccini had choose to end the opera with it. However, what I meant by dramatics for dramatic's sake (bad English and a poor choice of words on my part) was that it would have been a rather bombastic ending and I much prefer the more subtle (and still emotionally effective) choice that Puccini made.


What if Wagner had written _Tosca_? I wonder if he would have found a way to employ both themes at the end.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

The Conte said:


> I agree with you in part. Yes, Scarpia has a presence that hovers over the piece and his theme would have made perfect sense if Puccini had choose to end the opera with it. However, what I meant by dramatics for dramatic's sake (bad English and a poor choice of words on my part) was that it would have been a rather bombastic ending and I much prefer the *more subtle *(and still emotionally effective) choice that Puccini made.
> 
> N.


Subtlety is not a word that _Tosca'_s ending evokes for me.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

amfortas said:


> What if Wagner had written _Tosca_? I wonder if he would have found a way to employ both themes at the end.


A _Tosca_ by Wagner is one of the most unimaginable things I've ever heard of.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> A _Tosca_ by Wagner is one of the most unimaginable things I've ever heard of.


You're welcome.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

I just finished watching Tosca as one of the Met Streaming offerings each day. 
This time with that abominable stage production by Luc Bondy with the Baron Scarpia being surrounded by whores in all kinds of suggestive sexual posings, and the humping of the Madonna statue in church (which, by majority demand) was changed to him kissing the hem of her gown instead.
But the voice of Roberto Alagna as Cavaradossi was really at its peak I thought, and his interpretation of the role was especially well performed as he, suspecting that he would indeed be shot with real bullets, crumples up the paper that will send them to freedom and surreptitiously throws it angrily aside.
Racette -- she of a consummate actor -- had a few off-pitch moments. She has a pretty voice but if only her voice were able to rise to her dramatic content of the role.
But my main point was that it gave me the opportunity to watch her sing "O Scarpia avanti a dio" as I imagined Scarpia's theme instead of "E lucevan le stelle" and what a difference in my emotional factor.
So I still am content with Vivalagentenova's original concept of the musical ending and am ever grateful to him/her for introducing this new found enjoyment into my life.


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