La bohème is an opera in four acts by Giacomo Puccini to a libretto by Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica after Henri Murger’s novel Scenes de la vie de boheme.

La bohème premiered in Turin on February 1, 1896 at the Teatro Regio (now the Teatro Regio Torino).

The Opera takes place in Paris, about 1830.

Puccini, Verismo, and La Bohème
The life of Giacomo Puccini (1858 - 1924) spans a period frequently known as the age of verismo, or realism. The term realism primarily refers to the artistic and literary movements in which artists and writers focused on common everyday subject matter and treated it in a "realistic" or "true to life" manner. Opera, however, is an art form that had its roots first in myth or religious mystery, and traditionally it boasts superhuman heroes, grand affluence and emotional excess. Verismo (Italian for realism) is an operatic style that arose in the 1890s in Italy and which emphasized literary naturalism, contemporary settings, lower-class subjects and violent passions and actions. La Bohème, a realistic opera, depicts bohemians who practice arts that are either fanciful or fraudulent; they are rich only in feelings.

How did this realism become imposed on opera? Realism was not only a movement in the arts; it was also a philosophical attitude and a response to the unprecedented scientific and social changes of the 19th century, specifically the industrial revolution and scientific discoveries and their influences on society.

The industrial revolution resulted in the tremendous growth of cities and so was responsible for bringing artists in contact with all kinds of people, including the lower classes. This destroyed the former assumptions that the lower classes were too uninteresting as subjects for art. The industrial revolution also produced many technological improvements that improved the standard of living for all classes in society: for example, typewriters (1868), telephones (1876), electric lamps (1879), and motion pictures (1879).

Developments in science, philosophy and the social sciences resulted in a revival of determinism, the idea that individuals have no control over their fate. Scientific discoveries threw doubt on religious ideals, and discredited idealism in general. Materialism became the compelling attitude, replacing idealism. Charles Darwin and Spencer proposed that life evolved from strictly materialistic causes: the accidental variation of species and the natural selection of the fittest. In philosophy, human developments were ascribed material causes by Karl Marx and Hegel. In the social sciences, the behavior of individuals and societies was explained to be the result of concrete, materialistic influences, those of heredity and environment.

The arts were influenced by the industrial revolution and other developments and reflected the attitudes of materialism and determinism. Literature avoided the heroic or dramatic presentation of characters and plots; instead they told stories which presented the plain, unornamented material of ordinary people's lives. Consequently, the main characters in novels became much less heroic and much more like everyday people, as in Maurice Flaubert's Madame Bovary (1856), Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace(1869), Giovanni Verga's Country Life (1880) and Emile Zola's Nana (1880).

Music was perhaps the last of the arts to be affected by realism because music is, after all, unrealistic by nature. Song instead of speech and continuous music has the effect of heightening, not downplaying, the importance of the drama and the people represented, something quite opposite to realism's basic idea. Therefore, realism perhaps was not as effective in music as in the other arts because composers still needed formal and stylistic methods that were the opposite of the principles of literary realism.

Puccini was shrewd; he wanted to become rich and famous. So he chose operatic subjects that reflected the realistic, deterministic attitude of his day. Also, he preferred presenting "human" situations for their dramatic effect, as opposed to the mystical and metaphysical ones. He portrays his heroines especially as figures who lack the power to control or change their fates. In La Bohème, for instance, Mimi's love for Rodolfo is doomed by her ill health and his poverty.

But realism was a short-lived movement. The idea that events can be portrayed realistically or objectively, limited artistic style, both for Puccini and art in general. By the turn of the century, discoveries in theoretical physics by Albert Einstein, Max Planck and others, contradicted this tenet; the new developments argued that time and place were not objective facts, but a matter of relative perspective. Artists in all fields then began to reflect this scientific overthrow of realism with a wide variety of new, non-objective, non-representational approaches. Post-realism includes such diverse figures as writers James Joyce and Thomas Mann; painters Pablo Picasso, Joan Miro and Piet Mondrian; and the opera composer Benjamin Britten.

Puccini, too, in his final opera, Turandot, turned away from verismo and the deterministic attitude towards life that it implied. Turandot is a richly symbolic setting of an ancient Chinese legend.

Realism, however, did not die with the challenges of science in the early 1900s. In fact, realism continues to be a major force in commercial art today; its influence can be felt in advertising, in films and on television programs, and in virtually all popular fiction.

ACT I
In their Latin Quarter apartment, the near-destitute artists, the painter Marcello and the poet Rodolfo, try to keep warm on Christmas Eve by feeding the stove with pages from Rodolfo’s latest drama. They are soon joined by their roommates—Colline, a philosopher, and Schaunard, a musician, who brings food, fuel, and funds he has collected from an eccentric student. While they celebrate their unexpected fortune, the landlord, Benoit, comes to collect the rent. Plying the old man with wine, they urge him to tell of his flirtations, then throw him out in mock indignation at his infidelity to his wife. As his friends depart to celebrate at the Café Momus, Rodolfo promises to join them later, remaining behind to try to write. There is another knock at the door; the visitor is a pretty neighbor, Mimì, whose candle has gone out on the drafty stairway. No sooner does she enter than the girl feels faint; after reviving her with a sip of wine, Rodolfo helps her to the door and relights her candle. Mimì realizes she lost her key when she fainted, and as the two search for it, both candles are blown out. In the darkness, Rodolfo finds the key and slips it into his pocket. In the moonlight the poet takes the girl’s shivering hand, telling her his dreams (“Che gelida manina”). She then recounts her life alone in a lofty garret, embroidering flowers and waiting for the spring (“Mi chiamano Mimì”). Rodolfo’s friends are heard outside, urging him to join them; he calls back that he is not alone and will be along shortly. Expressing their joy in finding each other (Duet: “O soave fanciulla”), Mimì and Rodolfo embrace and slowly leave, arm in arm, for the café.

ACT II
Amid the shouts of street vendors, Rodolfo buys Mimì a bonnet near the Café Momus and then introduces her to his friends; they all sit down and order supper. The toy vendor Parpignol passes by, besieged by eager children. Marcello’s former sweetheart, Musetta, makes a noisy entrance on the arm of the elderly but wealthy Alcindoro. The ensuing tumult reaches its peak when, trying to regain Marcello’s attention, she sings a waltz about her popularity (“Quando me’n vo’”). She complains that her shoe pinches, sending Alcindoro off to fetch a new pair. The moment he is gone, she falls into Marcello’s arms and tells the waiter to charge everything to Alcindoro. Soldiers march by the café, and as the bohemians fall in behind, Alcindoro rushes back with Musetta’s shoes.

ACT III
At dawn on the snowy outskirts of Paris, a customs official admits farm women to the city. Merrymakers are heard within a tavern. Soon Mimì wanders in, searching for the place where Marcello and Musetta now live. When the painter emerges, she tells him of her distress over Rodolfo’s incessant jealousy (Duet: “O buon Marcello, aiuto!”). She says she believes it is best that they part. Rodolfo, who has been asleep in the tavern, wakes and comes outside. Mimì hides nearby, though Marcello thinks she has gone. The poet first tells Marcello that he wants to separate from his sweetheart, citing her fickleness; pressed for the real reason, he breaks down, saying that her coughing can only grow worse in the poverty they share. Overcome with tears, Mimì stumbles forward to bid her lover farewell (“Donde lieta uscì”) as Marcello runs back into the tavern upon hearing Musetta’s laughter. While Mimì and Rodolfo recall past happiness, Musetta dashes out of the inn, quarreling with Marcello, who has caught her flirting (Quartet: “Addio dolce svegliare”). The painter and his mistress part, hurling insults at each other, but Mimì and Rodolfo decide to remain together until spring.

ACT IV
Now separated from their girlfriends, Rodolfo and Marcello lament their loneliness in the garret (Duet: “O Mimì, tu più non torni”). Colline and Schaunard bring a meager meal; to lighten their spirits the four stage a dance, which turns into a mock duel. At the height of the hilarity Musetta bursts in to tell them that Mimì is outside, too weak to come upstairs. As Rodolfo runs to her aid, Musetta relates how Mimì begged to be taken to her lover to die. The poor girl is made as comfortable as possible, while Musetta asks Marcello to sell her earrings for medicine and Colline goes off to pawn his overcoat, which for so long has kept him warm (“Vecchia zimarra”). Left alone, Mimì and Rodolfo wistfully recall their meeting and their first happy days, but she is seized with violent coughing. When the others return, Musetta gives Mimì a muff to warm her hands and prays for her life. As she peacefully drifts into unconsciousness, Rodolfo closes the curtain to soften the light. Schaunard discovers that Mimì is dead, and when Rodolfo at last realizes it, he throws himself despairingly on her body, repeatedly calling her name.


THE CHARACTERS

Mimi (soprano) - She tells Rodolfo that her real name is Lucia, but that everyone calls her Mimi. She is a poor seamstress who is suffering from tuberculosis.

Rodolfo (tenor) - A poor Parisian poet who falls in love with Mimi. His jealousy drives her away, but secretly he is concerned that he cannot give her the care she needs.

Marcello (baritone) - Rodolfo's roommate, a painter. He carries on a stormy, tempestuous relationship with Musetta.

Musetta (soprano) - A flirtatious coquette, Musetta loves Marcello but is always trying to make him jealous.

Colline (bass) - A philosopher, he lives in the same apartment with Marcello and Rodolfo. He pawns his overcoat to get money for Mimi's medicine.

Schaunard (baritone) - A musician, Schaunard is the fourth roommate.

Benoit (bass) - The somewhat bumbling landlord of the building where the four roommates live.

Alcindoro (bass) - A rich older man, an admirer of Musetta's. She uses him to make Marcello jealous.

GIACOMO PUCCINI (1856-1924)

Giacomo Puccini was born in Lucca, Italy on December 22, 1858. He came from a family of church organists, choirmasters and composers. As a teenager he served as an organist to the area churches and played the piano as entertainment at social events. In March 1876, Puccini walked over thirty kilometers to attend a performance of Verdi's latest opera success, Aida. This event changed his life and he decided that he would make opera his life's work.

In 1880 Puccini enrolled at the Milan Conservatory where he worked diligently at his music and received his diploma in 1883. In that same year he entered a competition for an unpublished one-act opera. His work, Le Villi, was not even given an honorable mention. However, it caught the attention of music publisher and promoter Giulio Ricordi and composer/librettist Arrigo Boito. They decided to fund a premiere production of the work. Ricordi later commissioned several of Puccini's most successful operas and his publishing house handled the printing rights for Puccini's music scores.

Twenty years separate the premieres of Giacomo Puccini's first opera, Le Villi from the premiere of his sixth opera, Madama Butterfly. In those twenty years, Puccini had become the acknowledged heir to the great Giuseppe Verdi as the leading composer of Italian opera, blazing a trail of success that moved opera into new realms of realism.

Puccini collaborated with several librettists on his works, including Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. His most famed operas include: Manon Lescaut (1893), La bohème (1896), Tosca (1900), Madama Butterfly (1904), La fanciulla del West (1810), Il Trittico—a collection of three one-act operas: Il tabarro, Suor Angelica, and Gianni Schicchi (1918), and Turandot (1926)—unfinished at the time of Puccini's death and later completed by Franco Alfano, one of Puccini's protégées.

Puccini was somewhat reclusive. He preferred his home in the country to hectic city life and enjoyed hunting and long walks through the countryside. He was a lifelong smoker, particularly of cigars, and in 1924 was diagnosed with throat cancer. He underwent surgery that left him no longer able to speak and died of a heart attack four days later on November 29, 1924 in Brussels.