The tragic tale of famed singer Floria Tosca is the feature on this week’s Sunday Opera (11/29 3:00 p.m.) in a production of Puccini’s beloved opera from La Scala. Set in Italy against the backdrop of the French Revolution and the onset of the Napoleonic Wars, Tosca (Anna Netrebko) unwittingly sets in motion the course of events that will eventually lead to her death as well as those of her lover Mario Cavaradossi (Francesco Meli), ruthless police chief Baron Scarpia (Luca Salsi) and escaped political prisoner Cesare Angelotti (Carlo Cigni). After the opera, join Michael Kownacky for an afternoon of music that is, in some way, related to the French Revolution including Haydn’s Symphony 85 in B flat major dubbed “La reine” because it was apparently a favorite of Marie Antoinette and the Symphony in C major of Orthon Joseph Vandenbroek (originally attributed to Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf) which is titled “La prise de la Bastille.” We’ll also hear from Paul Wranitzky and his Symphony in C minor which is also known as the “Grand Symphony for Peace with the French Republic,” and we’ll finish with excerpts from the 1934 film score by Arthur Honeggar to “Les Miseables.”
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The Sunday Opera: Puccini's "Tosca" from La Scala
