Were he a Twenty-First-Century musicologist, Lincoln might have used the sentiment credited to him to assess the enduring popularity of Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca, dismissed as a ‘shabby little shocker’ by noted critic Joseph Kerman six decades ago but still performed frequently throughout the world. GIACOMO PUCCINI (1858 – 1924): Tosca - Alexandra LoBianco (Floria Tosca), Scott Quinn (Mario Cavaradossi), Malcolm MacKenzie (Il barone Scarpia), Sabri Karabudak (Cesare Angelotti), Donald Hartmann (Il sagrestano), Jacob Kato (Spoletta), Ted Federle (Sciarrone), Rachel Stenbuck (Un pastore), Thomas Keefe (Un carceriere) North Carolina Opera Chorus and Orchestra Joseph Rescigno, conductor Īn opera lover who cited Gounod’s Faust as his favorite work, Abraham Lincoln is often quoted as stating that ‘you can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.’ The attribution resulting from a labyrinthine series of mistaken assumptions that is itself worthy of opera, it is unlikely that Lincoln actually penned those words, but the aphorism is consistent with his rustic wit.

Tosca opera death with animals