Tosca
by Giacomo Puccini


The Met Opera regrets to announce that the Met has canceled the remainder of the 2019–20 season of live performances due to the coronavirus pandemic. This includes all performances and Live in HD transmissions. Weekly radio broadcasts will continue with the scheduled opera, but in archived performances.  Today's Performance is from April 30, 2018.

Puccini’s melodrama about a volatile diva, a sadistic police chief, and an idealistic artist has offended and thrilled audiences for more than a century.

No opera is more tied to its setting than Tosca, which takes place in Rome on the morning of June 17, 1800, through dawn the following day. While the libretto takes some liberties with the facts, historical issues form a basis for the opera: the people of Rome are awaiting news of the Battle of Marengo in northern Italy, which will decide the fate of their symbolically powerful city.

The score of Tosca is considered a prime example of the style of verismo, an elusive term usually translated as “realism.” The typical musical features of the verismo tradition are prominent in Tosca: short arias with an uninhibited flood of raw melody, ambient sounds that blur the distinctions between life and art, and the use of parlato - words spoken instead of sung - at moments of tension.

Soprano Anna Netrebko, whom the New York Times hailed as “magnificent” when she made her role debut as Tosca in 2018, returns as Puccini’s explosive diva, back by popular demand. Bertrand de Billy conducts. [This is the cast and conductor you'll hear on Saturday April 11.]


Start time: 10:00am on Capital Public Radio.
Approximate running time 3 hrs.

Click in the "LINKS" area for more information on the Met website about Tosca including cast, synopsis, history and more. 

SEE Tosca live in a local cinema! 

The Met Opera broadcasts select live productions directly into cinemas so you can see the opera instead of only listen on the radio. Click the link on this page to go to the Met Opera's website for info and to find a cinema near you. Start time in cinemas is 9:55am and the CapRadio broadcast begins at 10:00am.