Melodrama in three acts to a libretto by Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica, from the drama La Tosca by Victorien Sardou. First performance: Rome, Teatro Costanzi, 14 January 1900.

On 14 February, 1889 (a few months before the debut of Edgar), Puccini, together with the librettist Ferdinando Fontana, attended a performance of La Tosca by Victorien Sardou in Milan, starring Sarah Bernhardt in the title role: he was amazed, so much so that, once again with Fontana, he went to Turin to see her a second time (17 March).

Shortly after he wrote to Giulio Ricordi, begging him to acquire the rights from Sardou to prepare a libretto. The Tosca project then overlapped with others which in the meantime Puccini was developing. Ricordi, at the beginning of 1891, commissioned Luigi Illica to write the libretto. Puccini however abandoned the project, perhaps because he understood that Sardou was not persuaded to entrust his drama to a young composer, not yet established. In the meantime Alberto Franchetti had come forward and Ricordi formally assigned him the composition of Tosca, to a libretto by Illica, in September 1894.

But in May 1895 Franchetti gave up, owing to difficulties encountered in the composition of the “lyrical part”. At that moment Puccini was set on the completion of La bohème, but did not miss the opportunity to regain a project that had aroused him a few years before. On 9 August he wrote: “I will do Tosca, an extraordinary libretto by Illica in 3 acts, Sardou excited about the libretto”. Illica was soon to be joined by Giuseppe Giacosa, evidently with the intention of “adding lyrical tone” to the libretto already written by Illica.

Work thereafter proceeded according to the usual script: Puccini put pressure on the librettists, especially on Giacosa, insisting on the delivery of the libretto and discussed it with them, even harshly, to impose solutions; the librettists, especially Giacosa, threatening to abandon the enterprise; Ricordi mediates. The musical work, even in the form of drafts and sketches, does not begin until the Autumn of 1896 and proceeds in a very fragmentary manner, for the attention that Puccini reserved for work on the libretto, and his usual commitment to accompany his works in Italian and European theatres.

Since the beginning of 1898 Puccini devoted greater continuity to composition and orchestration. Particularly fruitful is the living room in Monsagrati, in the Summer of that year, in the villa of his friend Raffaello Mansi. The Summer of 1899 saw Puccini in Torre del Lago and then Boscolungo, frantically working on the score and again on the dramaturgy and poetry. The work was completed in the Autumn of the following year.

The first performance was a success with the public. Critics on the other hand expressed concern. The work soon became repertory and was staged in all the major theatres of the world.