Giacomo Puccini's opera Tosca premieres at the…

Giacomo Puccini's opera Tosca premieres at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome, Italy, on January 14, 1900.

An opera in three acts to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Victorien Sardou's 1887 French-language dramatic play, La Tosca, the work is a melodramatic piece set in Rome in June 1800, with the Kingdom of Naples's control of Rome threatened by Napoleon's invasion of Italy.

It contains depictions of torture, murder, and suicide, as well as some of Puccini's best-known lyrical arias.

Puccini had seen Sardou's play when it was touring Italy in 1889 and, after some vacillation, had obtained the rights to turn the work into an opera in 1895.

Turning the wordy French play into a succinct Italian opera had taken four years, during which the composer had repeatedly argued with his librettists and publisher.

Tosca premieres at a time of unrest in Rome, and its first performance is delayed for a day for fear of disturbances.

Despite indifferent reviews from the critics, the opera is an immediate success with the public.

Musically, Tosca is structured as a through-composed work, with arias, recitative, choruses and other elements musically woven into a seamless whole.

Puccini uses Wagnerian leitmotifs to identify characters, objects and ideas.

While critics will often dismiss the opera as a facile melodrama with confusions of plot, the power of its score and the inventiveness of its orchestration will be widely acknowledged.

The dramatic force of Tosca and its characters will continue to fascinate both performers and audiences, and the work will remain one of the most frequently performed operas.

Many recordings of the work will be issued, both of studio and live performances.