An analysis of Puccini's Tosca: A heuristic approach to the unifying elements of the opera.

Operatic music is a hybrid: it is constructed neither according to purely musical nor to purely representational criteria. In this work, therefore, we propose new taxonomy and analytical procedures that allow these categories to be treated independently. By applying the formal rubrics of O (organizational) and I (illustrative) classifications to the palette of technical tools used by the composer and the librettists, we are able to isolate and examine the unifying features of Tosca's score. In Part I we apply these concepts to dramatic analyses of Sardou's original play La Tosca and the opera libretto, followed by a discussion of the illustrative musical elements of the score. Part II is a discussion of Tosca's organizational (unifying) elements, which are discovered in the interrelationship of surface motivic material (derived in part from Puccini's admiration for the works of Richard Wagner and in the expansion of motivic patterns over the entire work, whole acts and sections of acts, by means of prolonged pitch classes that cut through the foreground harmonies, and function within an implied Ursatz. In Part III, these same unifying features are traced in three of Puccini's other operas, Manon Lescaut (his first opera to achieve lasting success), La fanciulla del West (his first mature opera) and Suor Angelica, (part of II Trittico, his last complete work); these findings indicate that the composer employed these techniques consistently throughout his career. The Appendices include (A) an original, annotated translation of Sardou's play La Tosca, (B) an examination of possible historical sources for that drama, (C) a historical account of the genesis of the opera with new documentation, and (D) a comparative study of extant libretto versions, some of which are newly brought to light.PhDCommunication and the ArtsLanguage, Literature and LinguisticsMusicRomance literatureTheaterUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/129590/2/9542802.pd