La bohème: Information from Answers.com

For Ruggero Leoncavallo's opera of the same name, see La bohème (Leoncavallo). For the Deep Forest album, see Boheme (album). For all other uses, see La bohème (disambiguation).

Giacomo Puccini

Operas

Le Villi (1884)
Edgar (1889)
Manon Lescaut (1893)
La bohème (1896)
Tosca (1900)
Madama Butterfly (1904)
La fanciulla del West (1910)
La rondine (1917)
Il trittico: Il tabarro (1918)
Il trittico: Suor Angelica (1918)
Il trittico: Gianni Schicchi (1918)
Turandot (completed 1926 by Alfano)

La bohème is an opera in four acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger.^[1] The world première performance of La bohème was in Turin on February 1, 1896 at the Teatro Regio^[2] (now the Teatro Regio di Torino) and conducted by the young Arturo Toscanini. Since then La bohème has become part of the standard Italian opera repertory and is one of the most frequently performed operas internationally. According to Opera America, it is the second most frequently performed opera in the United States,^[3] just behind another Puccini opera, Madama Butterfly. In 1946, fifty years after the opera's premiere, Toscanini conducted a performance of it on radio with the NBC Symphony Orchestra. This performance was eventually released on records and on Compact Disc. It is the only recording of a Puccini opera by its original conductor (see Recordings below).

1 Origin of the story
2 Meaning of the title
3 Performance history
- 3.1 Initial success in the 1890s
- 3.2 20th century
4 Roles
5 Synopsis
6 Instrumentation
7 Recordings
8 The missing act
9 Derivative works
- 9.1 Modernizations
10 References
11 External links

Origin of the story

Mimì's costume for act 1 of La bohème designed by Adolf Hohenstein for the world premiere

According to its title page, the libretto of La bohème is based on Henri Murger's novel, Scènes de la vie de bohème, but that novel is a collection of vignettes with no unified plot. Like the 1849 play by Murger and Théodore Barrière, the opera's libretto focuses on the relationship between Rodolfo and Mimì, ending with her death. Also like the play, the libretto combines two characters from the novel, Mimì and Francine, into a single Mimì character.

Much of the libretto is original. The main plots of acts two and three are the librettists' invention, with only a few passing references to incidents and characters in Murger. Most of acts one and four follow the novel, piecing together episodes from various chapters. The final scenes in acts one and four — the scenes with Rodolfo and Mimì — resemble both the play and the novel. The story of their meeting closely follows chapter 18 of the novel, in which the two lovers living in the garret are not Rodolphe and Mimì at all, but rather Jacques and Francine. The story of Mimì's death in the opera draws from two different chapters in the novel, one relating Francine's death and the other relating Mimì's.^[1]

The published libretto includes a note from the librettists briefly discussing their adaptation. Without mentioning the play directly, they defend their conflation of Francine and Mimì into a single character: "Chi puo non confondere nel delicato profilo di una sola donna quelli di Mimì e di Francine?" ("Who cannot detect in the delicate profile of one woman the personality both of Mimì and of Francine?") At the time, the novel was in the public domain, Murger having died without heirs, but rights to the play were still controlled by Barrière's heirs.^[4].

Meaning of the title

Since the 16th century, the French word bohémien was used to refer to gypsies, based on the erroneous belief that they come from Bohemia.^[5] As gypsies are associated in the common imagination with a wild and free life separate from rigid society, the name came to be associated with the counter-culture of young artists and other rebels in the Latin Quarter of 19th century Paris. This was a common colloquial term in Paris, when Henri Murger used it in the title of the stories which eventually became the basis for the opera. The fame of Murger's stories carried the term to the world beyond Paris and into other languages, such as English, where "bohemian" has a similar connotation.

The word bohème denotes the place where these bohemians live, and thus translates to "Bohemia". When referring to the geographic region, the preferred French spelling was (and is) Bohême, with a circumflex. Murger encouraged the alternate spelling of bohème, with a grave accent, to specify the conceptual Bohemia he wrote about. In the preface to Scènes de la vie de bohème he wrote, "La Bohème, c'est le stage de la vie artistique; c'est la préface de l'Académie, de l'Hôtel-Dieu ou de la Morgue." ("Bohemia is a stage in artistic life; it is the preface to the Academy, the Hôtel-Dieu [hospital], or the Morgue.)

Although Puccini's opera is in Italian, it was given a French title, shortening Murger's title to simply La bohème. A literal translation of this would be "Bohemia" but in the poetic sense of the word, not the geographic. (It has sometimes been rendered in English as "The Bohemian Girl", possibly under the influence of Michael Balfe's opera of that name, but that is erroneous. "The Bohemian girl" (or gypsy girl) would be bohémienne.)

Performance history

Initial success in the 1890s

The world première performance of La bohème was in Turin on February 1, 1896 at the Teatro Regio^[2] (now the Teatro Regio di Torino) and was conducted by the young Arturo Toscanini. The opera quickly became popular throughout Italy and productions were soon mounted at the Teatro di San Carlo (14 March 1896, with Elisa Petri as Musetta and Antonio Magini-Coletti as Marcello), the Teatro Comunale di Bologna (4 November 1896, with Amelia Sedelmayer as Musetta and Umberto Beduschi as Rodolfo), the Teatro Costanzi (17 November 1896, with Maria Stuarda Savelli as Mimì, Enrico Giannini-Grifoni as Rodolfo, and Maurizio Bensaude as Marcello), La Scala (15 March 1897, with Angelica Pandolfini as Mimì, Camilla Pasini as Musetta, Fernando De Lucia as Rodolfo, and Edoardo Camera as Marcello), La Fenice (26 December 1897, with Emilia Merolla as Mimì, Maria Martelli as Musetta, Giovanni Apostolu/Franco Mannucci as Rodolfo, and Ferruccio Corradetti as Marcello), the Teatro Regio di Parma (29 January 1898, with Salomea Krusceniski as Mimì, Lina Cassandro as Musetta, Pietro Ferrari as Rodolfo, and Pietro Giacomello as Marcello), and the Teatro Donizetti di Bergamo (21 August 1898, with Emilia Corsi as Mimì, Annita Barone as Musetta, Giovanni Apostolu as Rodolfo, and Giovanni Roussel as Marcello).^[6]

The first performance of La bohème outside Italy was at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Argentina on 16 June 1896. The opera was given in Alexandria, Lisbon, and Moscow in early 1897. The United Kingdom premiere took place at the Theatre Royal in Manchester, on 22 April 1897, in a presentation by the Carl Rosa Opera Company supervised by Puccini.^[7] The performance was given in English and starred Alice Esty as Mimì, Bessie McDonald as Musetta, Robert Cunningham as Rodolfo, and William Paull as Marcello.^[7] On 2 October 1897 the same company gave the opera's first staging at the Royal Opera House in London and on 14 October 1897 in Los Angeles for the opera's United States premiere. The opera reached New York City on 16 May 1898 when it was performed at Palmo's Opera House with Giuseppe Agostini as Rodolfo. The first production of the opera actually staged specifically for the Royal Opera House occured on 1 July 1899 with Nellie Melba as Mimì, Zélie de Lussan as Musetta, Fernando De Lucia as Rodolfo, Enrico Caruso as Parpignol, and Mario Ancona as Marcello.^[6]

The German premiere of La bohème took place at the Kroll Opera House in Berlin on 22 June 1897. The French premiere of the opera was presented by the Opéra-Comique on 13 June 1898 at the Théâtre des Nations. The production used a French translation by Paul Ferrier and starred Julia Guiraudon as Mimì, Jeanne Tiphaine as Musetta, Adolphe Maréchal as Rodolfo, and Lucien Fugère as Marcello. The Théâtre de la Renaissance presented the opera in 10 October 1989 with Cécilie Thévenet as Musetta, Julien Lepestre as Marcello, and Gabriel Soulacroix as Rodolfo.^[6]

20th century

La bohème continued to gain international popularity throughout the early 20th century and the Opéra-Comique alone had already presented the opera one hundred times by 1903. The Belgian premiere took place at La Monnaie on 25 October 1900 using Ferrier's French translation with Marie Thiérry as Mimì, Léon David as Rodolfo, Eugène-Charles Badiali as Marcello, and Philippe Flon conducting. The Metropolitan Opera staged the work for the first time on 26 December 1900 with Nellie Melba as Mimì, Annita Occhiolini-Rizzini as Musetta, Albert Saléza as Rodolfo, Giuseppe Campanari as Marcello, and Luigi Mancinelli conducting.^[6]

The opera was first presented in Brazil at the Teatro Amazonas in Manaus on 2 July 1901 with Elvira Miotti as Mimì, Mabel Nelma as Musetta, Michele Sigaldi as Rodolfo,and Enrico De Franceschi as Marcello. Other premieres soon followed:

Monaco: 1 February 1902, Opéra de Monte-Carlo in Monte Carlo with Melba as Mimì, Caruso as Rodolfo, Alexis Boyer as Marcello, and Léon Jehin conducting.^[6]
Prato: 25 December 1902, Regio Teatro Metastasio with Ulderica Persichini as Mimì,Norma Sella as Musetta, Ariodante Quarti as Rodolfo, and Amleto Pollastri as Marcello.^[6]
Catania: 9 July 1903, Politeama Pacini with Isabella Costa Orbellini as Mimì, Lina Gismondi as Musetta, Elvino Ventura as Rodolfo, and Alfredo Costa as Marcello.^[6]
Austria: 25 November 1903, Vienna State Opera in Vienna with Selma Kurz as Mimì, Marie Gutheil-Schoder as Musetta, Fritz Schrödter as Rodolfo, Gerhard Stehmann as Marcello, and Gustav Mahler conducting.^[6]
Sweden: 19 May 1905, Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm, presented by the Royal Swedish Opera with Maria Labia as Mimì.^[6]

Roles

Act 2 costume design for "la rappezzatrice" (the clothes mender) for the world premiere performance.

Prop designs for act 2 of La bohème for the world premiere performance.

Role	Voice type	Premiere cast, 1 February 1896 (Conductor: Arturo Toscanini)
Rodolfo, a poet	tenor	Evan Gorga
Mimì, a seamstress	soprano	Cesira Ferrani
Marcello, a painter	baritone	Tieste Wilmant
Schaunard, a musician	baritone	Antonio Pini-Corsi
Colline, a philosopher	bass	Michele Mazzara
Musetta, a singer	soprano	Camilla Pasini
Benoît, their landlord	bass	Alessandro Polonini
Alcindoro, a state councillor	bass	Alessandro Polonini
Parpignol, a toy vendor	tenor	Dante Zucchi
A customs Sergeant	bass	Felice Fogli
Students, working girls, townsfolk, shopkeepers, street-vendors, soldiers, waiters, children

Synopsis

The story is set in Paris in the period around 1830.^[8]

Rodolfo's garret — set design for act 1 of La bohème for the world premiere performance.

It essentially focuses on the love between the seamstress called Mimì and the poet Rodolfo. They almost immediately fall in love with each other, but Rodolfo later wants to leave Mimì because of her flirtatious behavior. However, Mimì also happens to be mortally ill, and Rodolfo also feels guilt, since their life together likely had worsened her health even further. They reunite for a brief moment at the end before Mimì dies.

Act 1

In the four bohemians' garret

Marcello is painting while Rodolfo gazes out of the window. In order to keep warm, they burn the manuscript of Rodolfo's drama. Colline, the philosopher, enters shivering and disgruntled at not having been able to pawn some books. Schaunard, the musician of the group, arrives with food, firewood, wine, cigars, and money, and he explains the source of his riches, a job with an eccentric English gentleman. The others hardly listen to his tale as they fall ravenously upon the food. Schaunard interrupts them by whisking the meal away and declaring that they will all celebrate his good fortune by dining at Cafe Momus instead.

While they drink, Benoît, the landlord, arrives to collect the rent. They flatter him and ply him with wine. In his drunkenness, he recites his amorous adventures, but when he also declares he is married, they thrust him from the room — without the rent payment — in comic moral indignation. The rent money is divided for their carousal in the Quartier Latin.

Title	Date
A Night At The Opera, The World's Greatest Operas [Box Set]	2007
Complete Puccini Recordings
Ferruccio Tagliavini The Early Italian Recordings
Giacomo Puccini: La Bohème	1993
Giacomo Puccini: La Bohème
Giacomo Puccini: La Bohème	2000
Giacomo Puccini: La Bohème	2007
Giacomo Puccini: La Bohème	2009
Giacomo Puccini: La bohème	2008
Giacomo Puccini: The Operas [Box Set]	2008
Great Performances: Luciano Pavarotti (Box Set)	2001
La Boheme	1993
La Bohème
La Bohème	1993
La Bohème	1995
La Bohème
La Bohème
La Bohème	1999
La Bohème
La Bohème	1998
Legendary Performances of Freni [Box Set]	2007
Legendary Performances of Pavarotti [Box Set]	2007
Luciano Pavarotti Collection (Box Set)
Maria Callas, The Complete Studio Recordings 1949-1969 [Box Set]	2007
Maria Callas: The Complete Puccini Studio Recordings [Box Set]	2008
Movies Go To The Opera-Volume 2	1996
Pavarotti: The Italian Opera Collection [DVD Video]	2008
Popular Puccini [DVD Video]	2008
Puccini - The Great Opera Collection [Box Set]	2008
Puccini La Boheme	1996
Puccini: Bohème
Puccini: Bohème
Puccini: Bohème
Puccini: Bohème
Puccini: Bohème
Puccini: Bohème
Puccini: Bohème
Puccini: Bohème
Puccini: Bohème
Puccini: Bohème
Puccini: Bohème
Puccini: Bohème
Puccini: Bohème
Puccini: Bohème
Puccini: La Boheme	1995
Puccini: La Boheme	1987
Puccini: La Boheme	1974
Puccini: La Boheme	1996
Puccini: La Boheme
Puccini: La Boheme
Puccini: La Boheme	2002
Puccini: La Boheme	2008
Puccini: La Boheme, Vols. 1 & 2
Puccini: La Bohème	1993
Puccini: La Bohème	1996
Puccini: La Bohème
Puccini: La Bohème
Puccini: La Bohème	1994
Puccini: La Bohème
Puccini: La Bohème	1997
Puccini: La Bohème	1989
Puccini: La Bohème
Puccini: La Bohème	1994
Puccini: La Bohème
Puccini: La Bohème	1987
Puccini: La Bohème	1999
Puccini: La Bohème	1998
Puccini: La Bohème	1998
Puccini: La Bohème	1999
Puccini: La Bohème
Puccini: La Bohème
Puccini: La Bohème	1996
Puccini: La Bohème	1997
Puccini: La Bohème	1991
Puccini: La Bohème	1998
Puccini: La Bohème	2000
Puccini: La Bohème	1999
Puccini: La Bohème
Puccini: La Bohème	2001
Puccini: La Bohème	2002
Puccini: La Bohème	2000
Puccini: La Bohème	1995
Puccini: La Bohème	2003
Puccini: La Bohème	1994
Puccini: La Bohème
Puccini: La Bohème
Puccini: La Bohème
Puccini: La Bohème	1997
Puccini: La Bohème	2005
Puccini: La Bohème
Puccini: La Bohème	2005
Puccini: La Bohème	2006
Puccini: La Bohème	2006
Puccini: La Bohème
Puccini: La Bohème
Puccini: La Bohème	1998
Puccini: La Bohème	2008
Puccini: La Bohème	2008
Puccini: La Bohème	1987
Puccini: La Bohème
Puccini: La Bohème [DVD Video]	2007
Puccini: La Bohème [DVD Video]	2008
Puccini: La Bohème [Hybrid SACD]	2003
Puccini: La Bohème [Hybrid SACD]	2006
Puccini: La Bohème [Le Film de Luigi Comencini]	1988
Puccini: La Bohème; Madama Butterfly; Tosca; Turandot [Box Set]	2003
Puccini: La Bohéme	1993
Puccini: La Bohéme
Puccini: La bohème	2000
Puccini: La bohème	2002
Puccini: La bohème	2001
Puccini: La bohème	2007
Puccini: Manon Lescaut; La bohème; Tosca [Box Set]
Puccini:La Boheme
Pucini: La Bohème	1997
The Great Composers: Giacomo Puccini [DVD + 2 CDs]
The Great Operas
The Great Operas of Giacomo Puccini (Box Set)	2001
The Greatest Puccini Recordings Ever Made [Box Set]
The World's Most Romantic Operas [Box Set]	2007
Three Centuries of Italian Opera
Vissi d'arte	1999

La bohème

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