The opera Tosca was based on a play written in 1887, La Tosca by Victorien Sardou, a play in five acts with more subplots than the opera. Arguably, the opera is an improvement over the complex play (Plotkin 207-208). However, the opera aroused more opposition than any of Puccini's works "by reason of its alleged coarseness and brutality" (Sadie, The New Grove Book of Operas 621), though at the same time, Tosca remains one of Giacomo Puccini's most popular operas. The libretto has a political plot, with the evil Scarpia on the side of the bourbons who were ruling Rome at the time, while the conspirators Angelotti and Mario support Napoleon, whom they hope will be successful and will free Rome from is oppressors. On one level, the opera is about the failure of processes of assimilation as the Bourbons indeed ruled with an iron hand rather than trying to fit into the social or political structures of Rome. Scarpia is the representative of the Bourbons who enforces their decrees and does so through brutality and torture, just as he uses these things against Angelotti and others in the opera, seeing any means as acceptable to achieve his ends.
Giacomo Puccini was born in Lucca on December 22, 1858 and died in Brussels on November 29, 1924. He first studied music with his uncle, Fortunato Magi, and with the director of the Istituto Musicale Pacini, Carlo Angeloni, and he then started his career at the age of 14 as an organist at St. Martino and St. Michele, Lucca, and at other local churches. He saw a performance of Verdi's Aida at Pisa in 1876, and it made such an impact on him that he decided pursue operatic composition as his career. He received a scholarship and financial support from an uncle and so was able to enter the Milan Conservatory in 1880, where he remained for three years. His chief teachers were Bazzini and Ponchielli. While still a student, Puccini entered a competition for a one act opera in 1882, a competit...