Tosca
Tosca
Tosca
Enter the glory and terror of 19th-century Rome: a city where the political is always personal.
Combining romance, revolution and intrigue, Puccini’s opera is a full-blooded drama.
Combining romance, revolution and intrigue, Puccini’s opera is a full-blooded drama.
Royal Ballet and Opera Principal Julia Rausing Trust
Aud Jebsen, Sandra and Anthony Gutman, Alan and Caroline Howard and Ms Shawn M Donnelley and Professor Christopher M Kelly
Principal Partner, The Royal Opera
BEAUTY AND BLOODSHED
Rome in 1800 is in political chaos. Cesare Angelotti, a former consul of the short-lived Roman Republic, has escaped imprisonment, and seeks refuge in a church where the painter and republican sympathizer Mario Cavaradossi promises to hide him. Baron Scarpia, Rome's tyrannical chief of police, suspects them and persuades the painter's lover, opera singer Floria Tosca, whom he himself desires, that Cavaradossi has betrayed her. She leaves to confront Cavaradossi at his villa and Scarpia orders his men to follow her, in the hope they will find Angelotti and capture Cavaradossi. Alone with Tosca, Scarpia tells her that he will save Cavaradossi – but only if Tosca spends the night with him. Will Tosca yield to the man she hates to save the man she loves?
Background
In her much-anticipated debut with The Royal Opera, conductor Eun Sun Kim leads Jonathan Kent’s ‘handsome period staging’ (Guardian) for the 2024/25 Season. Natalya Romaniw makes a welcome return, sharing the passionate title role of Puccini’s sweeping opera with Chiara Isotton, making her house debut, alongside SeokJong Baek as Cavaradossi and Bryn Terfel as Scarpia.
From Sardou's play to Puccini’s opera
From the early 1890s Giacomo Puccini had toyed with adapting French playwright Victorien Sardou’s gripping melodrama La Tosca into an opera, but only began serious work following the premiere of the critically acclaimed La bohème in 1896. Employing La bohème's gifted librettists Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica to streamline Sardou's complicated plot, Puccini’s Tosca premiered in 1900.
With the city gripped by political unrest, fears of violence plagued the premiere at Rome’s Teatro Costanzi. However, Tosca opened without incident, and although unpopular with critics who disliked its violence, it became an immediate success with the public and has remained a favourite ever since.
Character-painting through music
Puccini portrays the idealism of Tosca and her lover Cavaradossi through radiant, expansive music, including Act I's duet 'Qual occhio al mondo' (What eyes of this world), Cavaradossi's ardent aria 'Recondita armonia' (Hidden harmony) and Tosca's despairing Act II prayer 'Vissi d'arte' (I lived for my art). Scarpia's music, by contrast, is dark and terrifying – from the demonic chords that open the opera to the violence of his Act II exchanges with Tosca.
Cast and Creatives
Creatives
Reviews
Access
There is lift access and step-free routes to over 100 seats in the Stalls Circle, Balcony and Amphitheatre. There are 10 steps or fewer to some seats in the Stalls Circle, Balcony, Amphitheatre and the Donald Gordon Grand Tier. All seats in the Orchestra stalls are accessed by 9 steps or more. A handheld bell is rung by Front of House staff to signal guests to take their seats before a performance. The bell is loud and can be startling. The bell is rung approximately ten minutes before the show starts and at each interval.
We have an assistive listening system available to use. This opera is sung in Italian with English surtitles. Captions and translations in English will be displayed on screens above the stage and around the auditorium.
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