In the play Tosca, right off the bat I was blown away by the beauty of the set. I was expecting a nice set but I didn’t expect that level of detail or depth. There were only three sets used for this opera so it was interesting to see how they depicted the whole story using only those three sets. The strategies they used to explain outside happenings to the viewers without a narrator or breaking the fourth wall were really interesting.

The way the plot developed was also really interesting. A clear conflict wasn’t really established till late in the show. At first in the play Angelottie seems like he will be a major character but he is killed off. After Scarpia starts accusing Cavaradossi, a conflict seems to start appearing. Scarpia wants Tosca for his own lustful desires, so he uses Cavaradossi to threaten her. In the end, EveryoneDies™. Tosca kills Scarpia, Scarpia fake orders Cavaradossi’s fake execution which actually turns out to be a real execution after which Tosca throws herself off the building to kill herself.

I loved the way the characters were portrayed in this show. Tosca starts out by just seeming like a jealous lady, but you realize that love meant much more back then and wasn’t so cheap. She ended up risking herself to save her lover Cavaradossi. Cavaradossi was a very loyal man who took torture and death to keep the secret of Angelottie. In the end he faced death with a lot of dignity. Angelottie was a pretty boring character. He escaped prison only to kill himself when faced with recapture. It wasn’t even that he was sure he would be captured. He killed himself before he was found. Scarpia was a great character as well. He reminded me of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, the soccer player, in that he was very smug and proud.