Three thrilling leading ladies trade off as the volatile diva Floria Tosca. First, soprano Aleksandra Kurzak reprises her riveting portrayal of the title role, starring alongside tenor SeokJong Baek as her revolutionary lover, Cavaradossi, and baritone George Gagnidze as the sadistic chief of police Scarpia. Later in the season, the extraordinary Lise Davidsen sings Tosca for her first time at the Met, alongside tenor Freddie De Tommaso in his eagerly anticipated company debut and powerhouse baritone Quinn Kelsey. And in the winter, soprano Sondra Radvanovsky and tenor Brian Jagde reunite following their acclaimed 2021 performances of the lead pair, joining forces with legendary bass-baritone Bryn Terfel, who returns to the Met after more than a decade. Maestro Xian Zhang conducts.
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. The specified settings for each of the three acts—the Church of Sant’Andrea della Valle, Palazzo Farnese, and Castel Sant’Angelo—are familiar monuments in the city and can still be visited today. 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 (if not the drama) itself 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.
