Perhaps the most visually stunning version of the opera to date, Gianfranco de Bosio has succeeded in giving a dimension of realism to this story of love, deception and murder by shooting it on location in Rome.  Bulgarian soprano Raina Kabaivanska is seemingly able to transfer her mastery of Tosca onto film as effortlessly as she's performed it over four hundred times on the stage. Placido Domingo is superb as the impetuously reckless, non-conformist Mario, who ends up signing his own death warrant.  But the tour de force is given by Sherill Milnes as Scarpia, a man capable of such masterful interpretation of the score, that he's actually able to sing a question mark!

DVD-R is in Italian with switchable English subtitles.  Approx. 115 mins.