Vissi d’arte

Puccini’s “Tosca”: Four Key Excerpts

by

Giacomo Puccini’s three-act opera, Tosca, blends “intrigue, love, lust, politics, and religion.” (James Conlon) Set in Rome in June of 1800, amid the turbulence of the Napoleonic wars, the action takes place over a breakneck sixteen hours. The story centers around three principal characters: Floria Tosca (soprano), a star opera singer, her lover Mario Cavaradossi (tenor), a painter and republican, and the corrupt and sadistic chief of police, Baron Scarpia (baritone), a …

Read more

“Vissi d’arte” from Tosca

by

Through the expressive power of music, opera conveys the deepest and most complex human emotions. It allows us to enter the psyche of characters and experience the drama on a gut level. Opera, with its far flung story lines and sung libretto, can’t be approached literally, as if you’re watching a movie or a play. It has to be experienced as metaphor…a story unfolding through music. Vissi d’arte (“I Lived for Art”) is one of …

Read more