Tosca at Teatro del Bicentenario in Leon, Mexico

ON THIS PERFORMANCE

Tosca is an opera in three acts with music by Giacomo Puccini and an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It was a success when it was first performed in Rome on 14 January 1900 at Teatro Costanzi. The text of the play is based on an intense drama, La Tosca by Victorien Sardou, presented in Paris in 1887, where the great actress Sarah Bernhardt performed.

Tosca is considered one of the most representative operas of the Italian veristic repertoire for its intense drama and some of the most beautiful arias in the repertoire. The plot includes love, intrigue, violence, passion and death. Together with Madama Butterfly and La Bohème, it is one of Puccini’s three best-known operas.

Musically, the work follows the style created by Puccini to date with a continuous musical discourse broken only by one or two arias. The most shocking scenes are that of Te Deum at the end of the first act, and the Vissi d’arte (for Tosca) and E lucevan le stelle (for Mario) arias. Dramatically, the second act affords an intensity unmatched by any other of Puccini’s works.

The action takes place in Rome on 14 June 1800, when Napoleon beats the Austrians under General Michael von Melas’ command at the Battle of Marengo.