Surely, here in the 21st century, we're all a part of the most sophisticated and informed society in history. Sometimes, though, it seems like our social standards are getting more and more squeamish all the time. As a result, all kinds of regulators are in place to protect us from cultural experiences some might find objectionable, and they're cracking down on everything from spontaneous expletives during TV interviews, to costume mishaps at sporting events, to foul-mouthed radio hosts.
One symptom of this is a proliferation of official ratings. Everything these days seems to have one. There are movies, with their old familiar PG, R and NC-17 ratings. TV shows have ratings, too: TV-Y, TV-G, TV-MA and so on. Music lovers are often confronted with the "Parental Advisory/Explicit Content" label. There are even video game ratings, ranging from EC for "Early Childhood," to AO for "Adults Only."
One genre that seems to have escaped the ratings police is opera. But stop and think: Aren't there plenty of operas you'd have to steer your kids away from, if they were rated?
Puccini's Tosca is surely a good example. If it showed up at the cineplex, Tosca would get at least a PG-13 — maybe an R, depending on how the producers treated the racier scenes. On television, Tosca would probably wind up with a TV-MA, due to "graphic violence" and "sexual content." And what about Tosca: The Video Game? That one gets an "Adults Only" for sure — you wouldn't want your kids stepping into an interactive version of Act Two!
Tosca, of course, has come by its lurid reputation honestly. Its various dramatic elements include overt passion, graphic violence, gruesome torture, sexual extortion, attempted rape, suicide and bloody murder — and the murder of a law enforcement official, no less.
Early on, one critic denounced Tosca as a "shabby little shocker." Benjamin Britten, one of the great opera composers of the 20th century, described it as, "sickening." Audiences, naturally, love the opera — can't get enough of it.
Listening to Tosca, you might catch yourself wondering about the opera's "redeeming values," but surely it has plenty. There's the music, for one thing — as passionate and openly beautiful as anything Puccini ever composed. The drama is blatantly exploitative, but it's also masterful. It pokes at the darker side of our desires, and even satisfies them, at least vicariously. There's nothing like Puccini for highbrow entertainment that brings along a ton of soul, and leaves you with a guilty grin.
On NPR's World of Opera, host Lisa Simeone presents Tosca in a vivid production from Houston Grand Opera, starring the exciting soprano Maria Guleghina in the title role, tenor Alfredo Portilla as her lover Cavaradossi, and baritone Franz Grundheber as Baron Scarpia, one of the great operatic villains of all time.
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