Since its gala New Year’s Eve premiere in 2017, David McVicar’s monumental Metropolitan Opera Tosca has been a revolving door for casts of variable cachet. Like Franco Zeffirelli’s blockbuster production of yesteryear, this one is engineered to impress no matter who’s on deck. But when real heavy hitters check in, watch out! Of this season’s 13 performances, the four to prioritize are the ones culminating in a “Live from the Met” HD transmission to international movie houses. Norway’s strapping “It” girl and the Met’s reigning diva Lisa Davidsen is Rome’s reigning diva of June 14, 1800 (though the character is fictional, the date of the action is historic). In his house debut, the exciting Italo-British tenor Freddie De Tommaso brings a somber touch of Heathcliff to Tosca’s lover, the painter and revolutionary firebrand Cavaradossi. The powerful Hawaiian baritone Quinn Kelsey is Scarpia, the sadistic chief of Rome’s secret police, the proverbial iron fist in a velvet glove. Xian Zhang conducts. —Matthew Gurewitsch