Some context: Funeral for a Friend were a Welsh post-hardcore band from Bridgend, formed in 2001. The band consisted of lead vocalist Matthew Davies-Kreye and guitarist Kris Coombs-Roberts for its entire history, with Darran Smith (guitar), Gareth Davies (bass) and Ryan Richards (drums and screaming vocals) completing the line-up for the band's first four studio albums. Between 2008 and 2012 the band transitioned towards its final line-up, which saw Davies-Kreye and Coombs-Roberts alongside guitarist and occasional vocalist Gavin Burrough, bassist Richard Boucher and drummer Pat Lundy (who left the band in 2014). Funeral for a Friend's popularity rose in the United Kingdom with the release of their debut album, Casually Dressed & Deep in Conversation (2003).
In May 2005 the first single from the upcoming second album "Streetcar" acted as the band's fourth consecutive top 20 single in the United Kingdom by debuting at number 15. On 14 June 2005, the band released their second album Hours through Atlantic Records. Produced by Terry Date, the album was recorded in two Seattle studios owned by the grunge band Pearl Jam and featured unusual methods of recording, for example Matt Davies' vocals were recorded whilst in a moving car and on a crowded Seattle street, for the song "Drive". Just two weeks after its release the album was certified a Silver over 60,000 sales and was awarded a Gold for over 100,000 sales on 23 December 2005. In August of the same year, the band won a Kerrang! Award for "Best British Band".  Funeral for a Friend performed several low-profile shows in Wales, including Bangor University and Bridgend Recreation Centre, prior to the release of Hours. In the United States, they played alongside bands such as Atreyu, Saosin, Hawthorne Heights and Thrice on the Maurice Stage of the 2005 Vans Warped Tour. The band headlined the British leg of Taste Of Chaos across November with support from The Used, Killswitch Engage, Rise Against and Story Of the Year. Funeral for a Friend released the third and last single from Hours, "History", which music video depicts the events of the miner strikes of the mid-1980s in South Wales.  Funeral For a Friend closed the promotional jaunt for Hours in the Summer of 2006, with a series of UK shows rescheduled from February. Most of the original dates had been cancelled because Matt Davies had suffered from a bout of laryngitis. Several other shows were scheduled in the UK to complement these rescheduled dates, and the tour culminated in a slot below headliners Guns N' Roses at the Download Festival at Donington Park. The rest of 2006 was spent writing and recording the band's third album.
What helped the band early on
A: In May 2005 the first single from the upcoming second album "Streetcar" acted as the band's fourth consecutive top 20 single in the United Kingdom by debuting at number 15.
Some context: Tosca (Italian pronunciation: ['toska; 'toska]) is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900. The work, based on Victorien Sardou's 1887 French-language dramatic play, La Tosca, is a melodramatic piece set in Rome in June 1800, with the Kingdom of Naples's control of Rome threatened by Napoleon's invasion of Italy. It contains depictions of torture, murder and suicide, as well as some of Puccini's best-known lyrical arias.
The French playwright Victorien Sardou wrote more than 70 plays, almost all of them successful, and none of them performed today. In the early 1880s Sardou began a collaboration with actress Sarah Bernhardt, whom he provided with a series of historical melodramas. His third Bernhardt play, La Tosca, which premiered in Paris on 24 November 1887, and in which she starred throughout Europe, was an outstanding success, with more than 3,000 performances in France alone.  Puccini had seen La Tosca at least twice, in Milan and Turin. On 7 May 1889 he wrote to his publisher, Giulio Ricordi, begging him to get Sardou's permission for the work to be made into an opera: "I see in this Tosca the opera I need, with no overblown proportions, no elaborate spectacle, nor will it call for the usual excessive amount of music."  Ricordi sent his agent in Paris, Emanuele Muzio, to negotiate with Sardou, who preferred that his play be adapted by a French composer. He complained about the reception La Tosca had received in Italy, particularly in Milan, and warned that other composers were interested in the piece. Nonetheless, Ricordi reached terms with Sardou and assigned the librettist Luigi Illica to write a scenario for an adaptation.  In 1891, Illica advised Puccini against the project, most likely because he felt the play could not be successfully adapted to a musical form. When Sardou expressed his unease at entrusting his most successful work to a relatively new composer whose music he did not like, Puccini took offence. He withdrew from the agreement, which Ricordi then assigned to the composer Alberto Franchetti. Illica wrote a libretto for Franchetti, who was never at ease with the assignment.  When Puccini once again became interested in Tosca, Ricordi was able to get Franchetti to surrender the rights so he could recommission Puccini. One story relates that Ricordi convinced Franchetti that the work was too violent to be successfully staged. A Franchetti family tradition holds that Franchetti gave the work back as a grand gesture, saying, "He has more talent than I do." American scholar Deborah Burton contends that Franchetti gave it up simply because he saw little merit in it and could not feel the music in the play. Whatever the reason, Franchetti surrendered the rights in May 1895, and in August Puccini signed a contract to resume control of the project.
What is the background of Tosca?
A:
In the early 1880s Sardou began a collaboration with actress Sarah Bernhardt, whom he provided with a series of historical melodramas.