Friday, January 24, 2025
Sunday, January 26, 2025    

Is there a more famous or beloved opera than Giacomo Puccini’s masterpiece La bohème? After a somewhat hesitant audience reception at its premiere in Turin in 1896, led by the great Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini, it has gone on to be performed everywhere. Bohème is listed with Puccini’s La Tosca, Verdi’s La Traviata, Bizet’s Carmen and Mozart’s The Magic Flute among the five most-performed operas of all time. It ran under its own name on Broadway in 2002-03, and also inspired the Broadway musical “RENT”, which ran for 12 years in New York and continues to tour the world.

Henri Murger’s Scenes from Bohemian Life appeared in 1851. It is a series of loosely connected tales about a group of young, penniless artists who barely scrape by but remain true to themselves, their ideals and their art. More than one writer has noticed similarities between Puccini’s own life as a student and the lives of his Bohemians. Murger’s tales inspired not only Puccini but his contemporary Ruggiero Leoncavallo to write operas for the Italian stage (Puccini’s quickly outdistanced Leoncavallo’s, and Leoncavallo never forgave him). They were also the basis for at least 4 films-one of them silent-along with a jazz album, a “musical spectacular”, and the above-mentioned RENT.

Without knowing any of this, and mostly without reading Murger’s tales, the world has embraced La Bohème for a century and a quarter. It is simply brilliant! From the first moments, the music conveys the high spirits of the bohemians–all men, incidentally. Borrowing from his own youthful Capriccio sinfonico, Puccini gives us their swagger and high spirits but also their humanity and self-doubt. And so it goes. When a woman appears onstage it is Mimì, fragile and ill, and the love story begins. Working closely with the writers of his libretto, Illica and Giacosa, Puccini creates a drama that is fast-moving, heart-breaking and completely human. His inspiration never falters—though some critics carp about his sentimentality—and by the final curtain anyone with a heart has been put very much in touch with it!

– Martin Webster