Dubbed a "shabby little shocker", Tosca opens with three crashing orchestral chords and never lets up until the opera-singer heroine, having stabbed the villain Scarpia and watched her artist-lover Cavaradossi die, leaps to her own death.
Dubbed a "shabby little shocker", Tosca opens with three crashing orchestral chords and never lets up until the opera-singer heroine, having stabbed the villain Scarpia and watched her artist-lover Cavaradossi die, leaps to her own death. Her Vissi d'arte and Cavaradossi's E Lucevan le Stelle epitomise opera's power to stir passion. Famous Toscas: Maria Callas, Renata Tebaldi, Angela Gheorgiu.