Deutsche Grammophon, Daniel Harding and the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia Present Puccini’s Tosca

Conducted by the new Santa Cecilia Music Director, Daniel Harding,
the opera stars Eleonora Buratto, Jonathan Tetelman and Ludovic Tézier

This concert staging inaugurated the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia’s 2024–25 season
and marked Harding’s official debut with the orchestra

Tosca will be released on 28 March 2025

Listen to “Dammi i colori … Recondita armonia” here and watch the video here

“It is a beautiful gift to be given the chance to become Music Director of a world-class orchestra
of such ambition in a city of incomparable historical and cultural significance”

Daniel Harding

The 2024–25 season-opening concert version of Tosca given by the Orchestra e Coro dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia is to be issued as an audio album by Deutsche Grammophon. Commemorating both the 125th anniversary of the opera’s premiere at Rome’s Teatro Costanzi on 14 January 1900 and the 100th anniversary of Puccini’s death, the release also marks a number of significant firsts. The performance is conducted by the new Santa Cecilia Music Director, Daniel Harding, while the exceptional cast is headed by Italian soprano Eleonora Buratto as Tosca, Chilean-American tenor and DG artist Jonathan Tetelman as Cavaradossi, and French baritone Ludovic Tézier as Scarpia.

Two excerpts were released late last year for streaming/download – Cavaradossi and Tosca’s third-act duet, “O dolci mani … Amaro sol per te m’era il morire”, and “Il bacio di Tosca”, the instrumental epilogue to Act Two. Both were issued on 29 November 2024, exactly 100 years after Puccini’s death. A new track, “Dammi i colori … Recondita armonia”, complete with video, is released on 14 February 2025, and “Vissi d’arte” will follow on 7 March. The filmed version of the full concert performance can be viewed now on STAGE+. Set for release digitally and on 2 CDs on 28 March, the album is the first fruit of an exciting new partnership between DG and the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.

The October 2024 concert staging of Tosca was the first live performance ever given of the opera by the Santa Cecilia orchestra and chorus, although there are no fewer than three 20th-century recordings by earlier incarnations of the ensembles. It was not only Daniel Harding’s debut in his new role as Music Director, but his first time conducting Tosca. The work was, however, the perfect choice for these musicians when it came to commemorating the Puccini centenary, given that it is, in Harding’s words, “the Roman opera par excellence”. Set entirely in Napoleonic-era Rome, the opera was also premiered at the city’s Teatro Costanzi, in January 1900.

The firsts continue – this was Eleonora Buratto’s second Tosca, but her Italian debut – her interpretation led to her being hailed as “the Tosca of our dreams” (Giornale della musica). It was also Jonathan Tetelman’s debut with the orchestra and his first time working with Harding, in what has become a signature role. “All I ever wanted to do was sing Cavaradossi, here in Rome, with this wonderful orchestra,” says the tenor, whose critically acclaimed second DG album, The Great Puccini, presents extracts from nine operas, including “E lucevan le stelle” from Tosca (“His Cavaradossi is as languid and heroic as you could wish for” – BBC Music Magazine). “Santa Cecilia is in very capable hands with Daniel Harding,” adds Tetelman. “He’s very collaborative and it’s nice to have a conductor who’s interested in learning alongside the singers.” Buratto and Tetelman were joined by the pre-eminent Scarpia of our time, Ludovic Tézier (“His Scarpia is still a bully, but there’s sinister charm and ironic humour here too” – Bachtrack).

On stage in Rome, these experienced performers more than met the challenges of conjuring the drama of an opera without sets, costumes and lighting. A concert performance can highlight the slightest vocal and orchestral nuance, and here every detail of Puccini’s writing can be heard. As noted by Giornale della musica, “The Santa Cecilia orchestra and chorus are the equal of those of the world’s greatest opera houses … Daniel Harding demonstrates from the very first bars that he knows the score inside out and how to make the most of Puccini’s orchestration – its subtlety and modernity as well as its expressive and dramatic power.”

Another gem of the new Santa Cecilia-Deutsche Grammophon partnership – a breathtaking performance of the Verdi Requiem, it too conducted by Daniel Harding – can be streamed now on STAGE+. There is more Puccini to come this season, meanwhile, from Jonathan Tetelman: he stars in a double bill of Il tabarro and Le villi in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (17, 19, 21 February), and reprises the role of Pinkerton in a new production of Madama Butterfly at Baden-Baden, opposite Eleonora Buratto, with the Berliner Philharmoniker and Kirill Petrenko (12–20 April). The same team gives two concert performances of Madama Butterfly at the Berlin Philharmonie (25 & 27 April), while Puccini will also feature in Tetelman’s concerts in Munich and Prague (5 & 9 June).