Tosca demands a safe conduct as soon as Scarpia signs it, she stabs him with his own knife. Tosca nods to Scarpia, and he apparently gives the orders for a mock execution. Spoletta brings word that Angelotti swallowed poison rather than be arrested, and he waits for instructions about Cavaradossi. Scarpia offers Tosca a bargain – he will spare Cavaradossi’s life if she gives herself to him. As Scarpia dispatches his men to arrest Angelotti, word arrives that Napoleon has been victorious in battle, and Cavaradossi delights at the news as he is taken away to prison.
Cavaradossi refuses to reveal Angelotti’s hiding place, but the terrible sounds of his torture impel Tosca to tell Scarpia to look in the well.Ĭavaradossi is brought in, and is horrified to learn from Scarpia of Tosca’s betrayal. Tosca can be heard singing at a private performance nearby, after which Scarpia has summoned her to join him.
Spoletta arrives to tell Scarpia that they have not found Angelotti, but have arrested Cavaradossi. As the Te Deum is sung, Scarpia gloats that he will destroy Cavaradossi and possess Tosca. When she goes to confront her lover, he has her followed. He suspects Cavaradossi of harbouring the fugitive, and when Tosca reappears he deliberately inflames her jealousy.
Their high spirits are interrupted by the chief of police, Scarpia, who is searching for the escaped prisoner. They leave as the Sacristan reappears, summoning his choristers. In case of danger, Angelotti should hide in the well in the garden. Returning to Angelotti, Cavaradossi says he will take the fugitive to his house. A corrupt chief of police has a cruel ultimatum for Tosca, Rome’s most-celebrated prima donna. Premiered January 14, 1900, Teatro Costanzi (Rome, Italy) The 2021-22 Season opens with Puccini’s heart-racing drama overflowing with power struggles and vengeance. She is jealous – not least when she recognises the woman in Cavaradossi’s painting as the Marchesa Attavanti – but Cavaradossi reassures her, promising to change the eyes in the portrait to Tosca’s. Libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. Cavaradossi thinks of the singer Floria Tosca, with whom he is in love.Īngelotti approaches Cavaradossi, who shares his politics, but their conversation is interrupted by Tosca’s arrival. The artist Cavaradossi arrives and the Sacristan recognises in the Mary Magdalene he is painting a woman who has been coming to the Church to pray. He hides when he hears the Sacristan coming. Note: This special performance lets you experience the most beautiful musical highlights of Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca, right in the city where the dynamic action unfolds.Angelotti, an escaped political prisoner, looks for the key and clothes his sister has hidden in a chapel. To purchase the Operatic Soirée, follow the link here. Lovers of musical theatre can simply enjoy Tosca or satiate their appetites with an Operatic Soirée (book here), a package that combines the opera with a sumptuous dinner preceding the performance at a restaurant close to the Stadium. Including other contests in music, poetry and drama, the Emperor Domitian’s vision for a civilised form of entertainment had more in common with opera than the gladiatorial battles that returned to the Stadium after his death.Īncient Rome’s citizens may have ultimately rejected Domitian’s take on what made for good sport, but one fancies, with a plot that deals in murder and subterfuge, that they might have enjoyed Tosca as much as we do today. Built in 86 AD, the Stadium’s arena hosted the first Capitolian games, an event that borrowed its ideas extensively from Greek athletic competition.
Tosca at the Stadium of Domitian is history come full circle. He need not have worried: for audiences, it is perhaps the highlight of the entire opera. Given that his compositional style lends so much to the intensity of the story, it is not surprising that Puccini hesitated before including the aria, Vissi d’arte, which despite punctuating the flow of the work, and against the instincts of its creator, does so to great dramatic effect.
Tosca bears all the hallmarks of Puccini’s distinctive approach to operatic form, where the themes of the arias and recitative are blended together to create a coherent musical whole. Illica, who was collaborating with Puccini on La Bohème, had been writing the libretti for both composers. The narrative of Giacomo Puccini’s opera, Tosca, harks back to the rules of Greek tragedy as much as it is imbued with the mores of the Romantic tradition a tale which sees the downfall of its protagonists, the catalyst for which is the scorn of a jealous woman.Įnthralled by Sarah Bernhardt’s interpretation of Victorien Sardou’s anti-heroine in his La Tosca, which he saw not just once but twice, Puccini was so determined to set the play to music that, in collusion with Luigi Illica, he persuaded his fellow Italian, Alberto Franchetti, to give up his own commission on the piece.