Scarpia's other motive is less political, he lusts after Tosca. The painter has indeed abetted the revolution's leader. High maintenance, she is easily manipulated by odious police chief Scarpia (baritone Kenneth Stavert), who's out to crush the underground revolutionary movement in which he suspects Cavaradossi plays a major part. She is insanely jealous and assumes he's having an affair behind her back.

Opera diva Tosca (soprano Elizabeth Baldwin) loves painter/political firebrand Cavaradossi (tenor Peter Scott Drackley). Thanks to Puccini, everything's so compact and elemental, the plot happens over a 24-hour period. It's more intimate, for sure, which deepens the characters and pulls us right into the story. Light on spectacle, and with a greatly reduced orchestra and chorus, Opera in the Heights presents a highly-charged Tosca that roars down the highway on all cylinders. Thankfully, he relented, and the aria became one of the most beloved, signature pieces in all opera. Puccini even considered cutting Tosca's Act II's plea to God asking why He had allowed her to get into this compromising position, “Vissi d-arte” (I lived for love), because it stopped the flow of the story. He urged his librettists to prune, cut, revise and get to the meat. Co-librettist Giacoso complained to the composer that there was nothing but plot, but Puccini knew exactly what he was doing when he secured the rights to Sardou's scandalous melodrama that had been written expressly for theater's great diva, Sarah Bernhardt. It speeds along, no time for detours, spinning its tale with a breakneck pace. Giacomo Puccini's verismo-fueled Tosca (1900) runs on opera's highest octane – sex and violence.

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