RSS
Home
Tosca features prominently in Oscar winning film Milk; Returns to SF stage this summer
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
San Francisco Opera’s production of Tosca features prominently in the Oscar nominated film Milk and returns to the San Francisco stage this summer. Will social activists revisit the production of Tosca en masse to honor Harvey Milk's memory? I still have my candle from the candlelight vigil in Milk. 
The beautiful opera house with it’s ominous banners reading Tosca stands across from Harvey’s office. It’s the last thing he sees, as he and Mayor Moscone have been shot multiple times and Harvey takes his final breath, dying across the street in City Hall. Director Gus Van Sant foreshadows the tragedy with Tosca. Tosca is about political torture and killing and suicide with a sadistic twist. The three main protagonists die in quick succession.
Pictured right, Anthony Laciura playing Spoletto, an agent of the villainous Scarpia in Tosca.
Van Sant resembles Harvey Milk since Harvey made the salvation of troubled souls his business. Van Sant also directed Good Will Hunting about an abused but gifted young man. Tosca, similarly, provides refuge to an escaped prisoner running from persecutors. Tosca thereby becomes the focus of their torment. Tosca, a non-political artist as is her lover, remains deeply religious though and forgives her tormentor albeit post mortem.
Consequently we see the real Dianne Feinstein in Milk. She’s making the announcement as was her duty, breaking the news of the assassinations of Supervisor Milk and Mayor Moscone. As the film Milk debuts she says in the SF Chronicle she is no sadist so won’t see the film. Instead, recently she has made the peaceful transfer of power the point of her speech at the inauguration. It’s a founding principal of America and what makes this country the democracy it is. I wonder what was going on in her head as she spoke, being head of the inauguration committee. On that note. Isn't it the principle of the thing in Tosca and Milk, less about sexuality and more about the civil rights? Harvey/Sean says in the movie gays are killing themselves because of the oppressive secrecy this minority has had to live under. So Harvey says privacy is the enemy. Gays did not want to come out back then but were starting to stand up to the police and convention en masse. Just like Tosca?
A long time chorister with the San Francisco Opera remembers that Tosca performance vividly. Tom Reed recalls in detail how those backstage and on stage felt that night as they performed in the Tosca production Milk attended just before he died. Further, long time super Andrew Korniej comments on Tosca's role in Milk. It’s Catherine Cook currently with the San Francisco Opera as Tosca in the re-creation; Set and Costume Designer, Thierry Bosquet.
Credits in Milk also go to Maria Callas for two Tosca numbers. Van Sant also attributes another opera piece, the church serenade by Mozart, A Little Night Music or Eine kleine Nachtmusik. The prominent presence of Tosca foreshadows the tragedy to come as Tosca plays during dark moments in the film.
Yet Harvey says with astonishment to his former lover Scott after Harvey saw Tosca, the crowd went nuts. Harvey had stayed up all night after and the sun was rising. The future seemed to hold some promise as he finds comfort with this intimate phone conversation with his old love after yet another suicide of a partner. Harvey seemed to connect with the opera. Kind of like Julia Roberts’ crying in her box seat over the recognition of the courtesan and her fate in La Traviata. Forewarned by this morality play, the pretty woman watches and learns and demands the fairy tale not the male bourgeois fantasy of selfless sacrifice. Indeed. Verdi's La Traviata returns to the San Francisco Opera this summer as well as Puccini's Tosca.
Here's a beautiful picture taken backstage by John Martin of a priest from Tosca in 2004/2005.
Similarly my acquaintance Susan worked with me as a film extra on Milk. She says saw me in the school room scene where Harvey Milk/Sean Penn talks to the parents and teachers:
Ya gotta give 'em hope.
This was when a Senator Briggs was trying to ban all gays and their friends from teaching. In the film during a debate Briggs argues the ban is because gays don't have children and will molest and convert the children of straight people. Basically he says it’s one or the other, the 95 percent of the population that’s straight or the five percent that’s homosexual. It’s a practical matter. So Harvey asks:
How many lives will you ruin in your quest for political power?
Anyway I saw my dark long hair from the back in the scene with Sean. He's facing the camera and speaking to the classroom of parents and teachers. The camera stands in the back of the room and Gus Van Sant was back there. I am in the front row on the right and the camera pans left to right just as I turn my head to my neighbor and nod in agreement as Sean is saying "hope". The scene then cuts to the same speech and the Teamsters. It’s exciting. However the Teamsters and I feel about gays it's the principle of the thing, the civil rights. Harvey is saying in the movie gays are killing themselves because of the secrecy this minority has had to live under. Harvey says privacy is the enemy--but gays did not want to come out back then but were starting to stand up to the police and convention en masse. Just like Tosca on the stage?
In closing, here are a few more shots taken by John Martin, a preview of immortal things to come this summer . . .
A Toscanian lady . . .
A Toscanian gentleman . . .
Self portrait by John F. Martin . . .
Oscar Wilde, Freedom of Speech, Civil Rights
For more info: www.SFOpera.com
or visit www.jfmdigital.com
Related Articles:
Add a Comment
Single, married or something in between? Find what you need for Valentine's Day.
