Libretto
Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica, after the play La Tosca by Victorien Sardou.
First performance
Rome, Teatro Costanzi, January 14, 1900.
Synopsis
Tosca tells the tragic story of the singer Floria Tosca and her lover, the painter Mario Cavaradossi, who is trying to help a political prisoner, Angelotti. Police chief Baron Scarpia wants to arrest Angelotti and, at the same time, desires Tosca. Scarpia sets a trap: he captures Cavaradossi and blackmails Tosca, promising to save her lover in exchange for her attentions. Desperate, Tosca agrees, but then she kills him. Tosca reaches Cavaradossi at the execution site, believing the shot will be fake; instead, she discovers that Scarpia deceived her and Mario is truly dead. Hunted by soldiers, Tosca takes her own life by throwing herself from the battlements of Castel Sant’Angelo.
Puccini expressed his intention to write an opera based on Victorien Sardou’s play La Tosca after attending a performance in Milan in 1889: he immediately recognized it as the perfect subject for an opera. Publisher Giulio Ricordi sought the rights to the work, but due to some problems with Victorien Sardou, Puccini decided to give up his project. Ricordi tried again to negotiate a deal for the rights to the play, this time with a positive outcome. He asked Alberto Franchetti to compose the opera. A few months after receiving the assignment, Franchetti decided to withdraw. Giacomo Puccini thus took over. Despite the opera’s composition being particularly difficult, with many last-minute changes and revisions, Puccini’s Tosca premiered on January 14, 1900, at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome.