Thrilling opera, ‘Tosca,’ comes to the big screen in Whitefish

A roller coaster story of love, lust, jealousy, murder and political intrigue, the opera "Tosca" comes to Whitefish Nov. 23 as part of the Metropolitan Opera Live in HD program. 

Sung in Italian with subtitles, Giacomo Puccini’s thrilling opera shows how the lengths a person will go to save the one they love.   

In Act I, in the year 1800, Rome is ruled by fear as republicanism has been replaced by royalism. Scarpia, a royalist general of the secret police, continuously commits many republicans to prison. One of the political prisoners, Cesare Angelotti, succeeds in breaking out of prison and rushes into the church of Sant' Andrea della Valle. In the church, he meets up with another republican, his friend and painter Mario Cavaradossi. While Cavaradossi harbors Angelotti in his secret hideout, Cavaradossi’s lover, the famous opera singer Floria Tosca, interrupts their planning. Prone to jealousy, Tosca suspects Cavaradossi of being unfaithful until he manages to calm her, arranging to meet later that evening. Cavaradossi and Angelotti flee just before the arrival of Scarpia, who has discovered evidence that Angelotti was hiding in the church and suspects Cavaradossi as his accomplice. When Tosca returns, Scarpia uses the evidence to feed her jealousy and convinces her that Cavaradossi has fled with another woman. She leaves to find Cavaradossi and confront him, while Scarpia exults that he now has Tosca in his power.