Classical KDFC To Air 2014 San Francisco Opera Performance Of Giacomo Puccini's TOSCA

On Sunday, March 4 at 8 p.m., the Bay Area's Classical KDFC will broadcast a San Francisco Opera performance from November 2014 of Giacomo Puccini's Tosca starring soprano Lianna Haroutounian in the title role, tenor Brian Jagde as Cavaradossi and bass-baritone Mark Delavan as Scarpia, with maestro Riccardo Frizza leading the San Francisco Opera Orchestra. KDFC radio announcer Dianne Nicolini hosts the archival broadcast presentation, which will be available for on demand streaming at kdfc.com up to four weeks after the March 4 airing.

Tosca follows the titular heroine and her lover, Cavaradossi, as they struggle against Scarpia, the corrupt chief of police in nineteenth-century Rome. One of Puccini's most powerful and enduring works, Tosca holds an important position in San Francisco Opera history. The opera was featured during the Company's first season in 1923 at the Civic Auditorium, inaugurated the War Memorial Opera House in 1932 and reopened the Opera House in 1997 following its closure for seismic retrofitting. The 2014 broadcast marked the arrival of a new San Francisco Opera star in Armenian soprano Lianna Haroutounian and a commanding ensemble presentation of Puccini's well-known thriller.

Haroutounian, who recently triumphed at San Francisco Opera as Cio-Cio-San in Puccini's Madama Butterfly, made her Company debut as Tosca in 2014. The San Francisco Chronicle hailed her performance as "magnificent," "phenomenal" and "gripping, from moment to moment and scene to scene." American tenor Brian Jagde's Cavaradossi was praised by the Mercury News as a portrayal which "combined great tenderness and biting intensity. Jagde sang his heart out." In the pivotal role of Scarpia, bass-baritone Mark Delavan was "comfortable in this lordly role," observed the Mercury News, "his Act 2 confrontation with Tosca ... erupts with trembling power."

On September 7, 2018-opening night of the 2018-19 Season-Haroutounian returns to the War Memorial Opera House as Nedda in Leoncavallo's Pagliacci on a double-bill with Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana. During the upcoming season, Frizza returns to conduct Donizetti's Roberto Devereux (opening September 8) and Jagde will reprise the role of Cavaradossi in a new production of Tosca that opens October 3 with Italian soprano Carmen Giannattasio in her Company and role debuts as Tosca and baritone Scott Henricks as Scarpia. For more information about the 2018-19 Season, please visit sfopera.com.

Sunday, March 4, 2018 at 8 p.m. - Giacomo Puccini's Tosca (2014)

Lianna Haroutounian (Tosca), Brian Jagde (Cavaradossi), Mark Delavan (Baron Scarpia), Scott Conner (Angelotti), Dale Travis (Sacristan), Joel Sorensen (Spoletta), Efraín Solís (Sciarrone), Pietro Juvara (Shepherd Boy), Hadleigh Adams (Jailer); conducted by Riccardo Frizza. Recorded November 2014.