Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on January 14, 1900. The work, based on Victorien Sardou's 1887 French-language dramatic play, La Tosca, is a melodramatic piece set in Rome in June 1800, with the Kingdom of Naples's control of Rome threatened by Napoleon's invasion of Italy. It contains depictions of torture, murder and suicide, as well as some of Puccini's best-known lyrical arias.
Cast:
Floria Tosca – Maria Callas
Mario Cavaradossi – Giuseppe Di Stefano
Scarpia – Tito Gobbi
La Scala Opera Orchesta and Chorus
Victor de Sabata – conductor
EMI – recorded in 1953
