Prague Opera Tickets

Sometimes composers have had to be cajoled into setting opera to a particular story. In the case of Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca, nothing could be further from the truth.

Tosca had been destined for Alberto Franchetti. But as soon as Puccini heard that Verdi, revered like none other in Italian opera, had lavished praise on an early draft of the story, Puccini was determined to have Tosca for himself. It must have been an awkward moment for Luigi Illica, who wrote the final narrative for Puccini with Giuseppe Giacosa. He had been Franchetti’s librettist!

Premiered on 14 January 1900 at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome, there is no redemption for any of Tosca’s characters. The death count is high; two suicides, a murder and an execution. Yet none are gratuitous. All serve to drive Tosca’s unrelenting drama through to its staggering conclusion.

Tosca is set in the Rome of 1800, a city caught in the turmoil created by the Napoleonic Wars. The action begins with Angelotti, an escaped prisoner, seeking refuge in the Church of Sant’Andrea della Valle. Cavaradossi, an artist working on a painting of Mary Magdalene, helps him to hide. A jealous Floria Tosca, hearing the two whispering, assumes that Cavaradossi is concealing a lover rather than a political ally.

Witnessing their quarrel, Scarpia, the chief of police, seizes his opportunity. By torturing Cavaradossi, he hopes to find Angelotti and persuade Tosca to share his bed. Tosca sings one of the most famous arias in all opera, “Vissi d’arte”, as she fearfully contemplates the impossible choice Scarpia has put before her. His wickedness sets in train a sequence of events that will consume them all; it is Tosca, however, who lights the touchpaper.

Audiences will be delighted that Tosca is amongst the opera events scheduled this season in Prague. Works with just the name of their leading female in the title are amongst the most dramatic in the genre. Norma, Carmen, Salome and Puccini’s own Turandot all feature femmes fatales who catch men in their web. Tosca is every bit as powerful, but its protagonist is a woman all of us can sympathise with.