Puccini's Tosca

Based on Victorien Sardou’s eponymous melodrama, Puccini’s Tosca has remained an operatic favorite since its premiere in Rome in 1900. It narrates the last 24 hours of Floria Tosca, a devout opera diva and lover of painter Cavaradossi, arrested for his revolutionary sympathies. To save him, Tosca agrees to sleep with the infamous Roman police chef Scarpia, but stabs him before the act. Yet despite everything, Cavaradossi is executed. Tosca, dejected, throws herself over the parapet of the Castel Sant'Angelo.

The most Wagnerian of Puccini’s operas, due to the extensive use of leitmotiv, Tosca exhibits magnificent musical innovation and exuberance, with an intense dramatic atmosphere that adapts to the multiple twists and turns in the plot. In this Dutch National Opera production by Barrie Koskie, the three formidable main characters are played by Malin Byström, Joshua Guerrero, and Gevorg Hakobyan, with young maestro Lorenzo Viotti conducting the timeless score.