Rome is the city where you can visit the actual historic settings specified in the libretto of Tosca, and in the summer of 1992, Puccini’s tingling melodrama was broadcast from those places on live television. Act One came at us from the church of Sant’Andrea della Valle, Act Two from an executive suite at the Palazzo Farnese, Act Three from the rooftop of the fortress Castel Sant’Angelo. For you-are-there immediacy, that landmark video is hard to top; the stars are Catherine Malfitano, Plácido Domingo, and Ruggero Raimondi, with Zubin Mehta conducting from a remote orchestra studio. This season, the international maestro Daniel Harding, who moonlights as a commercial pilot for Air France, has a very different flight plan in mind. In concert performances with Rome’s Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, he leaves it to the audience to conjure up the pictures. Given Puccini’s genius at scene-painting, that goal is achievable. And then there’s the projection the principals bring to the party. Eleanora Burratto, whose rich, untroubled soprano can stir memories of Renata Tebaldi, stars as Tosca, the beloved diva who has all Rome at her feet. The happening new tenor Jonathan Tetelman portrays her hot-blooded lover Cavaradossi, painter and revolutionary. And Ludovic Tézier is on hand as the sadistic police chief who has all Rome at his feet, too, trembling in their boots. Spoiler alert: None of them makes it out alive. —Matthew Gurewitsch

Performances of Tosca in Concert will take place on October 21, 24, and 26.