On this episode of Opera for Everyone we listen to the opera Tosca by Giacomo Puccini. Tosca is an opera in three acts with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa.
It premiered in 1900 in Rome, Italy at the Teatro Costanzi. The story is based on the French-language play "La Tosca" by Victorien Sardou. It's a melodrama set in Rome in June 1800, where Napoleon's invasion of Italy threatens the Kingdom of Naples' control of the city.
The drama - based on real life events - focuses on an escaped political prisoner named Cesare Angelotti, his friend the famous painter Mario Cavaradossi, and Cavaradossi's lover, the beautiful, devout and talented singer Floria Tosca.
Tosca is a passionate, dynamic opera fueled by deception, murder, suicide, and love, and it features some of Puccini's best-known and loved arias.