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Tosca
di G. Puccini
ARENA DI VERONA
87° FESTIVAL LIRICO
Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Victorien Sardou's drama, La Tosca.
The original play by Victorien Sardou was produced in Paris in 1887 and seen by Puccini in Milan, in 1887, with Sarah Bernhardt as Tosca. Puccini immediately asked his editor Giulio Ricordi to buy Sardou's rights, but these were finally bought only in 1893 to be given to Alberto Franchetti, another composer. Illica wrote his libretto, and in October 1894, Franchetti, Ricordi, Illica and Giuseppe Verdi met Sardou to present him the libretto. Verdi was particularly fascinated by this tragedy, but he refused to compose music for it unless Sardou could come up with another ending. After a few months Franchetti finally admitted he was not able to compose music for the work, so Giulio Ricordi asked Puccini to do it. Puccini was still offended and only Verdi's intercession convinced him to accept. He started working on it in 1896, after the completion of La Bohème; Ricordi set Giuseppe Giacosa to work with Luigi Illica for the libretto, but Giacosa did not perform up to his own standards, and had several personal disputes with Sardou. Puccini too had disputes with Illica, Giacosa and Ricordi together. They had proposed a triumphal "Latin hymn" for Act III, but Puccini finally convinced them to reduce it to only the eighteen measures of Trionfal... di nuova speme.
In October 1899, after three years of difficult cooperation, the opera was ready.
The work premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on January 14, 1900.
Download the plot: click on the link "AIDA" under the picture on the left
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