This Is So Wrong for 2 Reasons

I didn't get to hear Laura Ingraham's program Wednesday. But over at Patrick Madrid's blog they had the following to say about a report on her show. "Raymond Arroyo reported that the Met's new season opener, Puccini's Tosca, features a very disturbing scene.
At the end one of the acts, the baritone who plays Baron Scarpia apparently simulates the sexual act with a statue of the Virgin Mary. When the curtain rises again, he is found caressing the statue."

The post points out the obvious: "we would never see this type a scene perpetrated with a statue of Mohammad. But, as usual, we Christians are fair game." Sad, but true.

But, as an Italiano, this is wrong for another reason, it takes a beautiful opera & perverts it for a blashpemous attack on the Catholic Church. While it isn't said in the report where the scene takes place, but based on the description of the act, I suspect it takes place at the end of Act 1. The last scene takes place inside a Catholic Church, Sant'Andrea della Valle in Rome.

Here is what the libretto has for the ending of that act:

Scarpia: (riavendosi come da un sogno)

Tosca, mi fai dimenticare Iddio!

(s'inginocchia e prega con entusiasmo religioso)
Tutti:

Te aeternum Patrem

omnis terra veneratur!

The 2nd Act opens in Scarpia's room at the Palazzo Farnese, Rome. He is alone eating his meal.

Now let's go back to the end of Act 1 & the instructions for the singer of Scarpia that I hilited. For those who don't understand Italiano Scarpa says that Tosca makes him forget God. Then Scarpia prays with religious enthusiasm. & the rest sing "To the eternal Father all the earth offers worship." (From the Te Deum or Ambrosian Hymn)

So instead of praying, he is now having fake sex with a statue of Mary while others are praying. & not just praying, but praying a Te Deum, a hymn of praise to God. So, knowing that fact, this becomes an even worse attack on the Catholic Church & greater blasphemy. & I suspect that Act 2 still opens where it does & he has stolen the statue. & since Scarpia is in love with Tosca, I suspect the statue will look like the person playing Tosca.

According to the Met Opera website, this is a co-production of the Metropolitan Opera, Teatro alla Scala, Milan, and Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich. This means that this same production by Luc Bondy will be presented in the same way in Italia as well as Germany.

I will grant that Scarpia is a villian. & in that context, it could be that the producer is merely trying to show us how evil he is. But, that doesn't justify carrying his villiany to this level. I go back to what was said early on, would they do something similar to a statue of Mohammad to show how evil a character was? I think not.

Source: "A New Season" of Anti-Catholic Bigotry