TOSCA at the Met

As always, just the thrill of being at the met, watching the chandeliers rise, seeing the brilliant stage set, hearing the orchestra, the voices, sets me going.  Sonya Yoncheva as the diva Floria Tosca and Victorio Grigolo as the painter and her lover, Mario, were passionate in their singing and acting. The great villain, Baron Scarpia, played by Zeljko Lucic, shook you when he tried to force Floria to have sex with him in exchange for a promise to spare her lover, Mario, from execution.

As Floria stabs Scarpia, she sang “Ah, you abuser! You tormented me for an entire night, should I not then have my turn? (She bends over him, staring at him eye to eye). “Look at me, scoundrel. Ah, to delight in your agony, and dying by a woman’s hand, you coward!”

Even at the end when the performers were taking their bows, the audience couldn’t stop booing Scarpia. You would have thought he was Harvey Weinstein. I spoke to other audience members who had seen Tosca before and they said it never happened before. The #metoo movement has become part of us wherever we are, and that’s the way change will happen. Bravo!!!