Puccini’s famous drama packs an enormous emotional punch and is an opera classic for good reason: Tosca is nail-biting thriller, tragic love story, and legendary betrayal all rolled into one. One of the most passionate operas ever written, Tosca is set amidst stunning churches and pictorial palazzos in Rome during the Napoleonic era. Its ill-fated heroine, Floria Tosca, a famous opera diva and legendary beauty, finds her happy life shattered and is forced to resort to violent measures to rescue her lover, Cavaradossi, who has been trapped in the web of the lecherous Chief of Police, Scarpia. Puccini’s sensuous melodies and exhilarating orchestration propel this drama forward to its tragic, breath-taking conclusion.

Tosca is sung in Italian with English translations projected above the stage.

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About the Music...

“Puccini’s music is quite different from that of anybody else. He is the most effective of all opera composers. If you were to ask nine opera goers out of ten in any country in the world whose operas they like best, as I have done, the answer would be Puccini…I think it is because he speaks to us personally in a way we understand.”

Conductor Sir Thomas Beechan

Excerpts of the music: Te Deum

Recondita armonia

Vissi d’arte

About Puccini: Learn More

Historical background on the opera: Learn More