Tosca is from the Italian *Tosca* — "Tuscan, from Tuscany" — a regional epithet that became a feminine given name through Sardou and Puccini's operatic heroine. **Puccini's *Tosca* (1900)** — **Italian opera in three acts; libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Victorien Sardou's 1887 play *La Tosca*; the title role of Floria Tosca — a passionate soprano who kills the police chief Scarpia rather than be coerced into intimacy with him, then leaps to her death from the Castel Sant'Angelo when she discovers her lover Cavaradossi has been executed — is one of the most-demanding dramatic-soprano roles in the operatic repertoire and is featured in every major opera house repertoire worldwide**. **Famous arias include "Vissi d'arte" ("I lived for art") — one of the most-recorded soprano arias in history; recorded by Maria Callas, Renata Tebaldi, Leontyne Price, Birgit Nilsson, Anna Netrebko, and Sondra Radvanovsky**. **Tosca Musk (born 1974)** — **South African-Canadian-American filmmaker; founder and CEO of Passionflix (2017), a streaming service for romance-novel film adaptations; sister of Elon Musk and Kimbal Musk**. **Tosca Tango Orchestra** — Austin-based band led by Glover Gill, scored films by Richard Linklater (*Waking Life* 2001). **Tosca** is also a popular Italian café-restaurant brand and a top-500 Italian girl's name in the 2020s.
Featured throughout opera history and modern Italian culture.
Tosca reduces to eight — the number of Vissi d'arte.