Puccini - Tosca

Renee Fleming singing "Vissi d'arte" at the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo, Norway
from Puccini's

Tosca

Tosca opens in a church, where the artist Cavaradossi paints a Mary Magdalen portrait while dreaming of his lover, Tosca, a famously passionate yet devout singer. Suddenly the escaped political prisoner Angelotti staggers in, on the run from the savage police chief Scarpia. When Tosca arrives and overhears the two men talking, she is devoured with suspicion that Cavaradossi has another lover, but the painter soothes her and hides Angelotti.

The angry Scarpia bursts in, hot on the escapee's heels and burning with lust for Tosca. Sizing up the situation, he schemes to make the jealous singer betray her lover's secret. Cavaradossi is arrested and brutally tortured in the Papal prison of the Castel Sant'Angelo, blackmailing Tosca into revealing Angelotti's whereabouts.

As the artist is dragged to the scaffold, Scarpia demands Tosca's favors as payment for her lover's life, but the agonized Tosca meets his embrace with a fatal knife thrust. Joyfully, she goes to free Cavaradossi, but Scarpia's final cruel ruse leads her instead to witness her lover's execution. As the police pursue her, Tosca throws herself from a parapet of the Castel Sant'Angelo to her death.


The Castel Sant'Angelo

Years ago I climbed to the top of the Castel Sant'Angelo which sits on the bank of the Tiber River very close to the Vatican. This is the very castle from which Tosca leaps to her death; I wish I had known that then. The castle was originally built as a mausoleum for the emperor Hadrian.





Tosca



Tosca
Luciano Pavarotti singing one of opera's most famous arias, "E lucevan le stele"





Tosca

Michelle Kwan skating to Puccini's "E lucevan le stele" from Tosca finishing with her 8th U.S. Nationals Gold Medal.