Her suspicion is further fuelled by the familiar looking features of the woman on the canvas (arioso: 'Non la sospiri la nostra casetta'). She has been suspecting the artist of having an affair. Their conversation is broken by the arrival of Cavaradossi's beloved, the famous Roman singer - one Floria Tosca. It soon transpires that the elusive lady from Cavaradossi's canvas happens to be his sister, the Marchioness Attavanti, who left behind in the chapel the necessary disguise she would normally use. The man who had previously hidden himself in a side chapel, now tries to make his exit from church as unobtrusively as possible, but eventually bumps straight into Cavaradossi, who at first fails to recognise in the tattered looking individual his good friend - one Cesare Angelotti, the former consul of the Roman Republic, who - in the wake of its fall and the and the reinstatement of the Ecclesiastical State by the Neapolitan army - had been imprisoned in the Castle of the Holy Angel and just managed to make good his escape. His loud reflections on the subject (an aria: 'Recondita armonia') really shock the sacristan, who rather indignantly comments on the event in clearly audible aside, while slowly taking his leave. Before he actually sets out to continue his work on the picture, he ponders the striking resemblance of the biblical woman on his canvas with the elusive lady often coming in to pray in the church. And soon enough Cavaradossi himself appears on the scene. Enters the sacristan, who then busies himself with the preparation of the paintbrushes for one Cavaradossi, an artist working on the picture of Maria Magdalene. The church bells sound off the high noon and the sacristan promptly says his Angelus prayer. Upon hearing the sound of footsteps in the distance, he scurries away into the shadowy interior of the Attavanti family chapel. A restless, syncopated tune accompanies the appearance of a nervous looking man in the now completely deserted nave of the church. A quick succession of five, rather harsh sounding chords provides a brief introduction to the drama about to unfold.

Puccini opera story