Tosca
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 14 January 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.

Puccini saw Sardou's play when it was touring Italy in 1889 and, after some vacillation, obtained the rights to turn the work into an opera in 1895. Turning the wordy French play into a succinct Italian opera took four years, during which the composer repeatedly argued with his librettists and publisher. "Tosca" premiered at a time of unrest in Rome, and its first performance was delayed for a day for fear of disturbances. Despite indifferent reviews from the critics, the opera was an immediate success with the public.

Musically, "Tosca" is structured as a through-composed work, with arias, recitative, choruses and other elements musically woven into a seamless whole. Puccini used Wagnerian leitmotifs to identify characters, objects and ideas. While critics have often dismissed the opera as a facile melodrama with confusions of plot—musicologist Joseph Kerman famously called it a "shabby little shocker"—the power of its score and the inventiveness of its orchestration have been widely acknowledged. The dramatic force of "Tosca" and its characters continues to fascinate both performers and audiences, and the work remains one of the most frequently performed operas. Many recordings of the work have been issued, both of studio and live performances.
Q1344
opera
Concept
Q7311
Giacomo Puccini
PER
Q131084
libretto
Concept
Q441843
Luigi Illica
PER
Q372032
Giuseppe Giacosa
PER
Q1050350
Teatro Costanzi
LOC
Q354828
Victorien Sardou
PER
Q852493
La Tosca
ORG
Q191489
melodrama
Concept
Q173065
Kingdom of Naples
LOC
Q517
Napoleon
PER
None
invasion of Italy
UNK
None
through-composed
UNK
Q178122
aria
Concept
Q202534
recitative
Concept
Q1511
Wagnerian
PER
Q221117
leitmotif
Concept
Q2917826
Joseph Kerman
PER
Q192941
Tosca
MEDIA
Q192941
Tosca
MEDIA
Q192941
Tosca
MEDIA
Q192941
Tosca
MEDIA
Q192941
Tosca
MEDIA
1900-01-14T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
14 January 1900
DATE
1887-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1887
DATE
1800-06-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
June 1800
DATE
1889-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1889
DATE
1895-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1895
DATE
instance of
composer
librettist
librettist
location of first performance
date of first performance
based on
genre
notable work
author
different from