Review: S.F. Opera’s ‘Tosca’ introduces a new diva, Carmen Giannattasio

Opera audiences love new productions with lavish sets and ornate costumes, but it wasn’t the furniture in Puccini’s “Tosca’’ that won the night on Oct. 3, it was an Italian diva making a starry San Francisco Opera debut.

Soprano Carmen Giannattasio is not only new to San Francisco, she is new to the role of the great Roman beauty who kills for love. Tosca and her lover Cavaradossi make up two corners of the triangle; at the third corner is Scarpia, the brutish Roman police chief who plans to sexually assault Tosca at the first opportunity. “All Rome trembles” before Scarpia, but not our heroine.