To this day, many sophisticated music lovers dismiss Puccini as a panderer or even a hack. But his supreme craftsmanship is the best refutation of this position. So dedicated was he to creating just the right effect for “Tosca” that he came before dawn one morning to the Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome and faithfully recorded the actual pitches of all of the church bells that can be heard there throughout the early hours, including those of the Basilica of Saint Peter’s.

Act III begins with a musical depiction of Cavaradossi’s last morning on earth. As dawn breaks, there is the unpitched sound of cowbells as the shepherd boy – Joshua Kosakoff Kohane in Monday night’s season premiere at the Met – sings his doleful song in a strangely out-of-focus manner. Then, as the jailer mounts the stairs and lights the lamp illuminating the crucifix, the church bells begin to punctuate the extremely melancholy music, echoing back to the ringing of the Angelus in Act I. There is one particular moment when the orchestra and bells plummet to a very deep modulation that stays in the mind and ear of the listener forever. Puccini paints a landscape of intense beauty for the artist Cavaradossi to contemplate during his last moments of existence.

A rather large number of works of roughly the same period – including “Tristan,” “Troyens,” “Otello,” “Wozzeck,” and “The Cunning Little Vixen” – have a scene like this, and their characteristics are remarkably similar. All take place at the commencement of the last act, regardless of whether the opera in question consists of three, four, or five scenic groupings. All have as their content some combination of nostalgia, homesickness, or wistfulness, as well as the implication that things were better in the past. All introduce unusual harmonies, modalities, embellishments, instrumentation, or scales. All involve minor characters either as the performers or as the subjects of the songs. All employ a simpler musical line than their surrounding material. All precede cataclysmic events involving the deaths of major characters. And finally, all involve altered states of consciousness.

This deeply affecting scene was handled by a master, as James Conlon returned to the Met podium. All evening he had been whipping his orchestra into paroxysms of passion. Now, for the pastoral farewell, they were sweet and tingling, dispensing only the most delicate of pastel colors.

It is undoubtedly time to stop referring to Salvatore Licitra as “that guy who took over for Pavarotti,” but this performance of “Tosca” was a bit of a commemorative anniversary of that now famous substitution, since Cavaradossi was the role at the time. Mr. Licitra has not always been a superb technician, but in this current run, he is off to a fine start. His “E lucevan le stelle” was not only solidly delivered with a burly voice arising deep in the chest cavity, but he even managed a slight hint of morbidezza – a foreshadowing of his own demise.

I often quibble about good – and even great – singers who can’t act their way out of a paper set, but the Tosca for this run is Maria Guleghina, and she was extremely impressive as a thespian. She has very savvy theatrical instincts. After her “Vissi d’arte” ovation, which was relatively lengthy, she brought us back to the emotional center of the story by sobbing just a tad before commencing to vocalize. Overall, her acting was visually and empathetically arresting. She took great care to lay out the body of Scarpia – this, not the murder, was the great specialty of Sarah Bernhardt in the original Sardou play – with her own body leaden with castigated resignation. Rather impressive for an opera singer.

Her singing, however, was not without problems. She possesses a very heavy voice and has some difficulty navigating it through the less weepy passages. Big notes from Ms. Guleghina seem to be shot from a cannon. By this, I do not mean that they are exceptionally forceful but rather that they exist in exaggerated dynamic contrast to the tones around them. Ideally, there should be a more flowing line, rather than the anticipation of constant surprise.

For the rest, Mark Delavan exhibited considerable craftsmanship as Scarpia, but simply does not have the ideal voice for this role. His is more of a polite and courtly baritone; for the police chief, one needs to be stronger, deeper, less sophisticated. Too much art can spoil this raw character. At the end of the day, you are either a born Scarpia or not, which explains why some less than stellar singers of the past, for example Sherrill Milnes, were superb specimens. And Paul Plishka was delightful as a saintly, yet full of foibles, Sacristan with an otherworldly hoot of laughter emerging from him at the oddest times.

All was held together expertly by Mr. Conlon. He is back from Paris and Cologne permanently and primed for greatness. When James Levine steps down as music director, the Met could – and probably will – do a lot worse.

Until May 21 (Lincoln Center, 212-362-6000).