When in Rome

A historian considers the characters of Tosca

by Susan Nicassio

With some operas, the exact setting, in terms of time and place, doesn’t much matter. Not so in Tosca. The historic context of Rome during the Napoleonic wars is as integral to the story as Tosca’s jealousy and Scarpia’s cunning. We meet Tosca on a particular day in history—June 17, 1800—as Napoleon’s army encroaches into Italy and pushes back the Austrians, who were allied with the conservative forces that governed Rome. The fictional characters of Tosca, originally conceived in the play by Victorien Sardou, are as true to their time as any you’ll find on the opera stage. Let’s consider them in the order we’re about to meet them.

Battle of Austerlitz, 2 December 1805, François Gérard, 1810, Palace of Versailles.

In Sardou’s play, Cesare Angelotti comes with a colorful backstory involving several nonfictional figures. In 1799, the Kingdom of Naples crushed the year-old “Roman Republic” and re-established the Papal States. As the opera begins, Angelotti, Consul of the short-lived Roman Republic, has escaped from prison, where he was being kept until he could be sent back to Naples to be hanged, mostly for the gratification of the British Admiral Horatio Nelson’s mistress, Lady Emma Hamilton. Angelotti had known (in the biblical sense) the future Lady Hamilton when she was a London prostitute named Emma Lyons, and had the bad taste to announce that fact at a formal State dinner. Lady Emma and her close friend, Queen Maria Carolina of Naples, wanted revenge, so the Queen sent Scarpia to Rome not only to “restore order,” but also to make sure that Angelotti hangs.

Julia, Marchesa Attavanti: Angelotti’s sister appears only as a portrait, but she is the all-important peg on which the action hangs. She arranged Angelotti’s escape and told him where in the church he would find the key to her husband’s family chapel, writing something seemingly innocuous, such as “the key to our hope lies at the feet of the Madonna.” Locked private chapels, unknown in modern American churches, were common: noble families would pay for their construction and had control of the keys that would open them. Mario’s easily recognizable painting of the lovely Ms. Attavanti as Mary Magdalene sparks Tosca’s jealousy, which leads directly to tragedy.

“The Sacristan”: Probably not a sacristan at all (that was a prestigious job). He’s more of a janitor, expressing the lower-class contempt for foreigners and for rich, liberal young men who dress well, have expensive mistresses, and don’t go along with the local point of view. No one resented French liberals more than the poor of Rome.

Mario Cavaradossi: In Sardou’s play, we learn he is the French-born son of an exiled Roman father and a Parisian mother, and heir to a titled Roman grandfather (thus his title of “Cavaliere,” or Sir). A student of the famous Jacques Louis David, Cavaradossi would have put in some time in the French revolutionary army as a teenager—every able-bodied male over 14 in France either volunteered or was drafted in the wars of the early 1790s (this helps explain his intransigence, or courage, in Act Two). His first words—“What are you doing?”—indicate he is so far outside the Roman mainstream that he does not recognize the most common of Roman Catholic devotions, the mid-day Angelus (unless, of course, he is just tweaking the Sacristan in order to enjoy his reaction).

Floria Tosca: Adored star of the Roman stage, conducting an inappropriate affair with the French-born liberal Cavaradossi. A foundling, she has risen from the bottom of society to its pinnacle quite suddenly, and it shows. She is one tough lady, and capable of murder if pushed too far. But her veneer of sophistication seems to be laid over a deep insecurity. God is her adopted father and the Virgin Mary her indulgent mama. She assumes that they will overlook the sulfurously passionate affair she is having with an openly irreligious enemy alien. She adores Cavaradossi, but doesn’t trust him.

Baron Vitellio Scarpia: A Sicilian courtier at the court of Naples. Sardou compares him to Neapolitan bandit-patriots (on the Royalist side) like Fra Diavolo. Scarpia seems to dabble in rape and sadism, but only as hobbies: his main focus is getting and keeping power. He is perfectly justified in condemning Cavaradossi, who is obviously guilty of treason in wartime.

Spoletta: A thoroughly disreputable sbirro (pejorative slang for cop), a toady by nature and a bully when he can get away with it. The Roman sbirri were a scruffy bunch even by eighteenth-century standards, and Spoletta seems to be a first-class example. He is probably Neapolitan or Sicilian, brought along to Rome by his boss Scarpia, who treats him with utter contempt and overt threats of casual violence—he threatens to have him strung up for not finding Angelotti as ordered. When Spoletta is in a tight spot, he turns to the Saint, whom he seems to regard as the patron saint of police spies.

Sciarrone: In Sardou’s play, a respectable Neapolitan army captain, Sciarrone is reduced to a flunky in the opera. His main jobs seem to be serving dinner, bringing mash notes to unwilling ladies, and transmitting orders from his boss to torturers and others too lowly to be addressed directly by the Baron.

A Shepherd Boy: The only truly Roman character in the whole opera. While herding sheep under the walls of the Castel Sant’Angelo, he sings a simple little song in the Roman dialect (which bore, and still bears, only a slight resemblance to Italian).

Judge, Jailer, and Executioners: Torture was legal in Rome in 1800 (a later pope would outlaw it) and would have required the presence of an officer of the court. But in 1800, the only legal technique was a sort of sleep deprivation—hardly dreadful enough for Scarpia. Roberti in Tosca is not a very skilled torturer; his paziente is not supposed to pass out. The Jailer keeps track of prisoners (and delivers final messages for an appropriate tip). The firing squad would have been ordinary soldiers, probably Neapolitan draftees. To Puccini’s credit, we don’t need to be historians in order to appreciate Tosca. The music and drama are crystal clear. But Puccini’s work accurately reflects a complicated historical reality—one that adds vitality and meaning to the opera.

An earlier version of this article appeared in Seattle Opera’s program for Tosca in 2015. For a more extensive look at the character, historical context, and performance of Tosca see Susan Nicassio’s Tosca’s Rome: The Play and the Opera in Historical Perspective.

Tosca returns to the McCaw Hall stage May 3–17, 2025. Learn more and buy tickets at seattleopera.org/tosca.