Tosca

While La Bohème consists only of poetry and not of action, it is said that with Tosca it is the other way around: only action, no poetry. Even the librettist Giuseppe Giacosa considered Sardou's original completely unsuitable for an opera. “What made Puccini come to terms with such a real and dealing with a brutal subject whose actors are little more than puppets entangled in a highly intelligent, cleverly designed plot? ”asked the music critic Mosco Carner. Maybe just that? For over 20 years Willy Decker's classic production of Puccini's Sex and Crime masterpiece has been a repertory perennial.