Madison Opera to Present TOSCA in November

Madison Opera will open its 63rd season with Giacomo Puccini's Tosca on Friday, November 3 at 8pm and Sunday, November 5 at 2:30pm in Overture Hall at the Overture Center for the Arts.  One of the most popular operas in the world, Tosca is a tightly-written melodrama that combines soaring music, true love, and political intrigue into three acts of headlong drama.

Set in Rome in 1800, the opera tells of the opera singer Floria Tosca, who risks everything to save her lover, the painter Mario Cavaradossi, from sinister police chief Baron Scarpia.  An escaped political prisoner, a religious procession, and a Napoleonic battle set the stage for a tragedy that ends with perhaps the most famous final few seconds in any opera.

Puccini based his opera on Victorien Sardou's 1887 play La Tosca, which had scandalized critics and was a smash hit with audiences.  Since the opera's premiere in 1900, it has been a major part of the repertoire, acclaimed as theatrically sensational and musically thrilling.

“Tosca is simply great musical theater, in all sense of those two words,” says Kathryn Smith, Madison Opera's General Director.  “Puccini's music delineates every dramatic moment, whether that is the raw emotion of Tosca's plea to God, the anguish of Cavaradossi's final moments in prison, or the orchestral tension as Tosca is faced with a terrible decision.  We have assembled an amazing cast to bring all of those moments to vivid life.”