Who decides how the operatic heroine dies?

I love this Q! And I can sort-of answer it… I had a friend in Seattle who worked in various small opera companies, and this subject actually came up once. She told me that it was usually decided by both the director and the dying one, and it often depended on whether or not she was singing exactly at the time, how comfortable she was with whatever sort of dramatic demise, and how high the sung notes were at the time of death. Apparently, that had to do with the sustainability of certain notes in the range and the body position. (The higher the note, the lesser the slump, the verticaler the better.) As far as I remember, realism was never mentioned. Or probably even thought of.

The tooth has is correct. It’s mostly a collaboration between the artist and director. Although there are operas where the death is somewhat specific. Tosca comes to mind; she throws herself off a parapet. The playwright, Sardou, insisted on an abrupt final scene. The music swells. Tosca throws herself from the tower. The lights go out and it’s over! Puccini wanted a longer, more drawn out death scene, but Sardou held his ground.

The Metropolitan Opera’s current staging of Tosca handles this very well. There is a body double on a harness and wire (bungee type) hidden behind the highest tower set piece. She is pre-set there for all of the final act. At the end, the actress playing Tosca runs up the stairs and behind the top of the tower, whereby the double rushes out and flings herself into space over the stage right as the lights go black. It all happens so very fast and if the timing is just right, provides a very chilling effect. A friend recently played Tosca at the Met and she let me in on the details of this final scene.

@zigmund : Oh, to have the budget of the Met! That is a cool thing to know, thanks for telling us!

The Met has the most money to spend of any theatrical group in the United States.
And when they mount a new production of something, it might only get performed 6 or 7 times that season. That’s it! Millions for a mere 7 performances!

@zigmund has the answer right on the money (so to speak). The biggest reasoning will always be due to the set budget, the vocal and physical range of the lead, and the original stage direction. I was vocally trained by a Met long standing chorus member. The drama was always dictated by the staging and sets first.

We kind of collect (mentally) misfirings of stage business. Tosca’s leap has contributed a couple of items. Once, she jumped and came bouncing back up into view from (it seemed) a trampoline. Another time, a heavy set Tosca seemed to leap, but an extremely thin Tosca appeared as she fell past the window. I love it.

These are all fascinating. Thanks! I’m most interested (as in my details) in the death scenes where the principal has a choice of how to fall or collapse in our full view, wondering if she (usually she) gets to try out a variety of dramatic expirations and choose one, and whether there’s a tendency to vie for novelty. Our latest Violetta’s topple from standing up on her cot made me think she was going for spectacle over sentiment.

I haven’t seen a staging where Tosca’s double fell from a height; that must take a bigger theatre. Usually Tosca hops up onto the battlement, hesitates for the tiniest second so we see her silhouetted, and then goes over and out of sight, presumably onto a soft landing. I always picture a pile of mattresses behind the set, and I’m afraid it interferes with the sense of fatality.

The woman’s jump out the Paris window at the end of La Voix Humaine is my favorite part. I hate that opera. Last time I saw it, she did a backward swan dive, and I was all too happy to applaud.