Ah Tosca, finalmente mia!
Mood:  lyrical
Now Playing: Tosca
Maybe because it was Valentine's Day, or maybe because the Winter Olympics are now playing in Turin (Torino), Italy, but I'm in an operatic mood. Two weekends ago I played "Madame Butterfly" on an audiotape, and sometime I hum or intone some music from that while I shower. Today I'm thinking heavily of "Tosca". I looked on the Internet and discovered a recent novel, "Floria Tosca", which tells the tale from Scarpia's point of view.

Some interesting links:

Tosca & Religion
by Wendy Neikirk, Boston Lyric Opera
http://www.operaworld.com/cornerstones/Tosca/tosstudy.htm

Timeless Tosca: Close-Up on Tosca
by Susan Nicassio
http://www.nycopera.com/learning/resource/articles/article014.aspx?detect=yes
(This talks about resettings of Tosca into different time periods. I'd once thought about resetting Tosca into modern NYC, and into the Civil War South and slavery.)

Floria (Paperback)
by Paola Capriolo
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1852423811/002-6884728-3852063?v=glance&n=283155

Floria Tosca
By PAOLA CAPRIOLO
Translated by Liz Heron
CHAPTER ONE
http://partners.nytimes.com/books/first/c/capriolo-floria.html

I called my composer Robert and spoke briefly with him a couple of weeks ago, but haven't reached him again since, though I left a message or two.

I'd been thinking recently about the importance of tragic flaws in some stories, plays, musicals, and operas. There isn't one in La Boheme. In West Side Story the tragic flaw is suspicion or distrust, carried by several characters, but not Tony or Maria. In Madame Butterfly it's displaced loyalty; Tosca, jealousy, same as Othello (and Scarpia makes reference to Iago before he provokes Tosca with the fan); Sweeney Todd, revenge; in Death of a Salesman, blind ambition; in Oedipus and in Antigone, probably pride or stubbornness; in Macbeth, ambition.

Not that Travis Tanner is a tragedy, though I have a mind to bring it to the brink of tragedy. So then, what would be the tragic flaw?

As I understand it, a tragic flaw is the personality trait or characteristic, usually within the main character, which drives the plot to its tragic results. Without the tragic flaw, the tragedy may have been avoided. If only he/she hadn't...

Here are some thoughts about tragic flaws:

Hamartia (Wikipedia)
MSN Encarta: Tragic Flaw