Tosca Puccini
Calgary Opera

How far would you go to save the person you love?

Tosca answers with ravishingly beautiful music and devastating choices.

DIVE DEEPER

• A true political thriller, the action of Tosca unfolds over a tense 18hrs on June 17-18, 1800, Rome.
• Tosca is an opera about an opera singer — and it shows. Puccini gives Floria Tosca the full diva personality: waves of jealousy over the women in her lover Mario Cavaradossi’s paintings, uncompromising poise as a respected public figure, and a signature tune to end them all: “Vissi d’arte”(“I have lived for art”).
• Activism as a pretense: after he helps political revolutionary escape prison, the painter Mario Cavaradossi is tortured and sentenced to die by the corrupt police chief, Baron Scarpia. On paper, the Baron is squashing Cavaradossi’s politics — but in truth, Scarpia wants Tosca, and threatening her lover’s life is his bargaining chip.
• When Scarpia attempts to rape her, Tosca doesn’t bargain — she fights.