When students who are unfamiliar with opera excerpts ask me where to begin I always tell them to start with Tosca. Why? Because this excerpt is on EVERY.SINGLE.LIST. That’s why I call it “the Shostakovich 5 of opera excerpts.” Whether you are preparing an audition for a famous opera company or a part-time group, you will need to know Tosca. Principal horn, utility, fourth, sublist, you name it - all of the auditions have Tosca on the list.

So why is this excerpt universally required for opera auditions? My guess is that it comes down to intonation and style. First, the section plays these 16 bars in unison without any support from the orchestra, so it must be flawlessly balanced with perfect intonation while at a fortissimo dynamic. This can show the committee a lot of the candidate’s technical abilities (or deficiencies) right away.

The real trick, though, is making sure the committee hears that the candidate actually know how it goes. There are traditional interpretations of the rubato that aren’t on the page, so one should be sure to listen to multiple recordings to get a sense of the general push-and-pull in this excerpt. And if the opera company hosting the audition has a recording of Tosca, then by all means be sure to play it like they play it.

One fun fact: this excerpt has words! The theme is heard again at the end of the act, in the vocal parts during the final duet between Tosca and her lover, the painter Cavaradossi. It’s not a typical love duet (spoiler alert: they both die soon after), so the theme is not lyrical but instead accented, powerful, and fraught with a sense of impending doom.

Tosca’s first notes, the leitmotif for the villain Scarpia — *Tosca’s* first notes, the *leitmotif* for the villain Scarpia

All in all, Tosca is an accessible way to get started with learning the operatic repertoire. On a personal note, it is one of my favorite operas! Though it generally gets a bad rap from critics, I think Puccini’s writing is quite good in this one, with the through-composed form and leitmotif techniques making Tosca his most Wagnerian opera. The Roman setting is also close to my heart, since I was lucky to do a summer study abroad program in Rome before my senior year of college. While there I visited the three sites where Tosca’s three acts are set: the basilica of Sant’Andrea della Valle, the Palazzo Farnese, and the Castel Sant’Angelo. Knowing this information, my husband (then boyfriend) John once surprised me with tickets to see Deborah Voigt in the original Zeffirelli production at the Lyric Opera of Chicago - it is still one of all-time favorite performances.