Image of the Day

Today I purchased the new eBook called The Metropolitan Opera Presents: Puccini's Tosca.  It's an invaluable guide to Puccini's marvelous opera with a heavy emphasis on it's history at the Met. As well as an extensive guide to the opera, the libretto in both Italian and English and it's performance history at the Met, there is a wealth of photographic documentation worth the price alone.

I've been searching for a decent copy of the photo above for some time now and found it in this new release.  It's a studio portrait of Renata Tebaldi in costume as Tosca, her own I think, taken by Louis Melancon and now part of the Metropolitan Opera Archives.  The video below contains Tebaldi in this very costume singing the Vissi d'Arte in Tokyo, 1961, a performance to truly treasure.