The history of Tosca in the United States following its successful introduction at the Metropolitan on 4 February 1901 has been one of apparently unflagging popularity. A staple in the repertory of the resident American companies, it has been nothing less in the offerings of the various touring companies, such as the San Carlo, which used to criss-cross the continent in fat times and lean. It seems safe to assert that there must be scarcely a city or a town in the United States where opera has been given in the last eighty years that has not been exposed to at least one Tosca. Because of the nature of its plot and its historic setting in well-known Roman monuments there has been little temptation to produce Tosca in alien epochs or styles; consequently the American history of Tosca tends naturally to focus upon the many exceptional performers who have appeared in it.

The first American cast of Tosca was headed by Milka Ternina as Tosca, Giuseppe Cremonini (who had been the first des Grieux in Puccini's Manon Lescaut) as Cavaradossi and Antonio Scotti as Scarpia; the conductor was Luigi Mancinelli. With the exception of the tenor, the principals and conductor were those of the Covent Garden premiere the previous July, a sequence typical of the regime of Maurice Grau that then dominated the principal opera houses of both London and New York.