Much to my joy, we can listen to Maria Callas sing this aria! I haven’t featured Maria Callas much in these “Great moments in opera” posts because I generally prefer to embed live action, staged, and subtitled clips, and there is precious little live action footage of Callas. This is one of the best-known soprano arias in all of opera, and with good reason.

She, hearing Cavarodossi’s cries of pain, vacillates as to what she should do in the famous aria Vissi d’arte ( I lived for art). In the second Act, the evil in Scarpia’s heart becomes fully evident: he brings Tosca in for questioning and vows to torture and kill Cavaradossi unless she will submit to his lecherous advances. Cavaradossi denies all knowledge, but Scarpia does not believe him Cavaradossi is arrested. At this point, however, we are simply treated to a lovely duet ( Non la sospiri, la nostra casetta?) ( Do you not long for our little cottage?) between Cavaradossi and Tosca:Īfter Tosca’s departure, the Chief of Police, Scarpia, enters the church in pursuit of the escaped prisoner. Soon enough the fates of all three will be entangled. His lover, Tosca, then makes her entrance. He offers him food, clothing, and a refuge on his estate.

He is interrupted by a friend, a political prisoner just escaped from prison. The action opens with a young painter, Cavaradossi, working on a mural in Sant’Andrea della Valle. The action of the plot takes place in a specific 24 hour period - 17-18 June 1800 - and the three Acts are set in three famous landmarks in Rome: the church of Sant’Andrea della Valle, the Palazzo Farnese, and Castel Sant’Angelo. Joseph Kerman famously dismissed it as “a shabby little shocker”, not without some reason, for it does have an unusually vicious villain, and the finale does play in a merciless and calculated way on the audience’s heartstrings, but the music is memorable and winsome, and in opera that generally carries the day. Puccini’s Tosca has been an opera-house favourite since its premiere in 1900.

Tosca opera clip art