Dunstan,
then a twenty - four - year - old first - time mom of a colicky baby boy in Australia, was an accomplished violinist and a trained
opera singer with the equivalent of a photographic memory for sound.
In the case of Tosca, our Work of the Week, the song in question is «Vissi d'arte» from the Puccini
opera Tosca, in which the title character, «the
opera singer with the eyes of black, threatened with rape by her lover's imprisoner, sings of her life dedicated to art and love, [
then] fights him off and kills him,» explains Schimmel Gold, who set out to capture the «despair and overwhelming emotions» of the tragic heroine.