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Autograph musical manuscript sketchleaf by Giacomo Puccini for his opera "Tosca," one page, 10.25 x 15, titled at the head in Puccini's hand, and signed in the lower right corner, "Finito l’atto lo a di 4 9embre 1898, G. Puccini." The large folio leaf is notated in dark brown ink on 12-stave music paper, arranged in four systems of three staves each. The manuscript contains 13 measures in condensed score from Act I, beginning four measures before figure 75. The passage occurs near the end of Act I, during Baron Scarpia’s sinister monologue, as he gloats over the prospect of capturing Angelotti and possessing Tosca. Puccini sets the scene over an obsessive pattern of alternating chords, enriched by bells, organ, simulated cannon fire, and dark bassoon sonorities—an unmistakably theatrical sound world that reveals his extraordinary instinct for atmosphere, tension, and dramatic pacing. Puccini’s notation of the Act I completion date suggests that he discarded drafting material at the end of each major section; the opera as a whole would not be completed until October 1899. In very good, fragile condition, with overall toning and creasing, mottled discoloration, edge chipping, and multiple edge tears, one of which passes through the signature.
Tosca, composed to a libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa after Victorien Sardou’s play, premiered at Rome’s Teatro Costanzi on January 14, 1900. One of Puccini’s most gripping and enduring works, it combines political intrigue, religious spectacle, erotic menace, and psychological realism into a tightly constructed theatrical drama. Though sometimes criticized for its brutality, Tosca has remained central to the operatic repertory, offering one of the great soprano roles and some of Puccini’s most vivid dramatic writing.
An exceptionally rare working manuscript from one of Puccini’s major operas, preserving a moment of intense compositional and dramatic significance from the close of Tosca’s first act. Autograph material from Puccini’s great stage works seldom appears on the market, and this signed, dated sketchleaf offers a remarkable glimpse into the creation of an opera that helped usher Italian lyric drama into the 20th century.
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