The love idyll of the singer Floria Tosca and the painter Mario Cavaradossiis broken up by the guileful Chief of Police, Baron Scarpia, and the history of this love triangle is closely interwoven with the history of Italy’s struggle for independence. The action of the opera occurs in 1800, amidst the standoff of the Kingdom of Naples and Napoleon’s France.

Puccini’s opera Tosca premiered in 1900. The opera-goers’ opinion was divided: some were delighted with the realization of the plot of Victorien Sardou’s dramatic play in music, while others accused Puccini of veristic extremes and melodramatics.

A century after it seems to be an indisputable fact that Tosca is a masterpiece of Italian opera.

Created in 1994 as the World Children Symphony Orchestra on the initiative of the opera singer Irina Arkhipova and the conductor Leonid Nikolayev, the Youth Symphony Orchestra of Russia has been a stepping stone to professional music life for more than 1000 young musicians over its twenty-year history. Many of them are now soloists in the country’s leading orchestras, such as the Russian National Orchestra, the Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra, the State Academic Symphony Orchestra and many others.

Today the Nikolayev Youth Symphony Orchestra of Russia is the only permanent symphony orchestra of young performers (10 to 20 years old) from the leading music institutions of Moscow, including students of the Moscow Conservatory.