"Tosca" was first performed on January 14, 1900 at the Teatro Costanzi, now the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, symbolically on the spot. The evening was a major social event, and in addition to the Prime Minister and the Queen, the composers Pietro Mascagni and Francesco Cilea were also present. With his "Tosca" Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) entered a new century and, with his highly theatrical and effective scenes, he committed himself to Verist opera on the one hand and to the tragic-heroic grand opera on the other.After seeing the drama of the same name by Victorien Sardous, which was a huge international success with Sarah Bernhardt in the leading role, the composer successfully applied to Sardou for the rights to create a libretto. The wealth of musical ideas (more than 60 themes appear as leitmotifs) and the breathless sequence of events are largely responsible for the immense tension and drama of the opera. By focusing on the main character, the work is considered a "prima donna opera" par excellence. Although it has always been suspected that a historical figure is behind Tosca, the characters and plot are freely invented.However, the background against which the plot unfolds is historically determined by the Second Coalition War and the Battle of Marengo in 1800 between French and Austrian troops. Napoleon’s supposed defeat and his final victory over the coalition troops are reported in the first and second act of the opera.Today "Tosca" is one of the most popular and most performed operas of all.

Almost entirely in December 1789, the year of the revolution, the score of this Mozart opera, which is hard to beat in its complexity and amour, was written in the shortest possible time - this time again in collaboration with the famous librettist Lorenzo da Ponte, with whom Mozart had just before successfully brought "Le nozze di Figaro" to the stage. Probably in the tradition of the opera buffa, the opera “Così fan tutte - ossia la scuola degli amanti” was commissioned by Emperor Joseph II.At the center of the amusingly frivolous event is the experienced cynic Don Alfonso, who knows the weaknesses of mankind and who, like a puppeteer, allows the four main characters to repeatedly come together in new pair constellations. The plot, which is kept quite simple and contains no superfluous episodes, is symmetrically structured and corresponds to its character according to the Commedia dell’arte. The duets of the individual couples are bewitching and sensually musical, reflecting the vulnerability and impermanence of the human being. After the work was critically and negatively judged due to the moralizing basic attitude of the 19th century, and repeated revisions were made to the libretto, the opera is now one of the absolute favorites of the public.The American feature film Closer from 2004 with Julia Roberts and Jude Law in the leading roles is based on "Così fan tutte" both in its score and soundtrack.