PUCCINI : LA BOHÈME

New York Metropolitan Opera Broadcast
Radio New Zealand Concert network
Sunday 4th of March 2007 3pm
Sunday 17th of February 2008 3pm
Sunday 5th of May 2008 3pm
Sunday 7h of December 2008 3 pm
Sunday 21st of March 2010 12 midday

If you are recording it (on VCR or DVD) off the Sky radio channel,
note that its number is 502 RNZ Concert (no longer 102 Concert FM)


Introduction
Background
Underground
Composer
Characters
Synopsis
Storyline sound-snippets: Maria Callas, Giuseppe di Stefano, Anna Moffo
Analysis
Libretto
Review by Sarah Noble, who saw it in a cinema in Sydney (2008)


PUCCINI: La Bohème, an opera in four acts
Living the Bohemian life beneath the cold, grey skies of Paris’s Latin Quarter, the poet Rodolfo and the frail seamstress Mimi find love
Mimì ............................ Anna Netrebko
Musetta ........................ Nicole Cabell
Rodolfo ........................ Piotr Beczala
Marcello ...................... Gerald Finley
Schaunard .................... Massimo Cavalletti
Colline ......................... Oren Gradus
Benoit/Alcindoro .......... Paul Plishka
Metropolitan Opera Chorus & Orch/Marco Armiliato  (2010)

PUCCINI: La Bohème, an opera in four acts
Mimi............................. Angela Gheorghiu
Musetta......................... Ainhoa Arteta
Rodolfo......................... Ramón Vargas
Marcello....................... Ludovic Tézier
Schaunard..................... Quinn Kelsey
Colline.......................... Oren Gradus
Benoit/Alcindoro........... Paul Plishka
Metropolitan Opera Chorus & Orch/Nicola Luisotti (EBU)

The February 2008 broadcast was a recording from 1977, with Pavarotti in splendid voice, and Renata Scotto as Mimi. Somebody up there, in smoggy New York, likes this one: three times in 2007-2008, and the year is a long way from over yet.
Stop Press! Mimi lives, and dies once more.
Yes, here is number 4, playing at the same time as the NY MET video recording (with Angela and Ramon) is showing in cinemas in NZ; but here is the real dream couple (Anna and Rolando), and coupling is what they do, snogging on the stage and in the wings, in the Salzburg La Traviata (when I was young the police would have invaded the stage and arrested them for indecency); Jussi Björling and Victoria de los Angeles, with Sir Thomas Beecham overseeing them, were much more modest (though one can not see what they are wearing on audio recordings).


A finalist in the 2008 Gramophone Awards
PUCCINI: La Bohème, an opera in four acts
Mimì............................. Anna Netrebko
Musetta......................... Nicole Cabell
Rodolfo......................... Rolando Villazón
Marcello....................... Boaz Daniel
Schaunard..................... Stéphane Degout
Colline.......................... Vitalij Kowaljow
Benoît/Alcindoro........... Tiziano Bracci
Parpignol....................... Kevin Connors
Gärtnerplatz State Theatre Children's Chorus,
Bavarian Radio Chorus & Orch/Bertrand de Billy (DG 477 6600)

There are two Italian operas bearing the French title La Bohème, which were composed at the same time, in the last decade of the 19th century: one by Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924), the other by Ruggero Leoncavallo (1858-1919). Both are based on Henri Murger's autobiographical Scènes de la vie de Bohème (Scenes of Bohemian Life, first issued serially in 1847 to 1849, then made into a play in 1849 and a novel in 1851). Then there is The Bohemian Girl (1843) by the Irishman Michael Balfe (1808-1870), which is something else (concerning a gypsy girl who has dreamt she "dwelt in marble halls", and then finds out that it was not a dream, because she really was of the nobility).

In 1892, after achieving fame through his Pagliacci, Leoncavallo thought Murger's stories might have the makings of an opera in them. He offered the idea to Puccini, but this composer wanted something of the verismo ('realism') style as exhibited in Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana (1890), and Leoncavallo's own Pagliacci (1892), which became an almost inseparable pair, as the nonsensical Cav and Pag for the English (Cav and Pal is now the recommended term for use by discerning opera wonks, as stated in our prologue).

The story goes that in a café in Milano on the 19th of March 1893, Puccini told Leoncavallo that he was now working on an opera about the Paris 'Bohemians' (incidentally, that was the title used for it when the libretto was first translated into English), and Leoncavallo spluttered that he was doing likewise. The contest was announced in the press, immediately: Puccini threw down the gauntlet, and declared that the public would decide on the merits of each opera. Of course, Giacomo had no qualms: his successful Manon Lescaut (February 1893) had the same story as Massenet's Manon (1884). Puccini lost interest for a while and fiddled with a Sicilian story, La Lupa (The She-wolf), but abandoned it and rescued some of the music for La Bohème. It had its first performance on the first of February 1896 (with Toscanini conducting): Leoncavllo's counterpart had its first night on the sixth of May 1897.

I have heard Australian critic John Cargher say that Puccini's hero is Mimi, and Leoncavallo's is Musetta. Both operas have four acts and end with Mimi's death and Rodolfo's grief, but Puccini uses the first act to set up the relationship between R and M (love at first sight and touch, and in the short time it takes to warm a cold hand they are lovers). Leoncavallo sets his first scene where Puccini has his second, at the Café Momus, but upstairs; Mimi the flower girl is already linked with Rodolfo the poet, and it is the painter Marcello who falls in love, with Musetta of course, but this is the first time they have met.

In Act 2 Musetta is evicted, because her previous lover, a rich banker, will no longer pay her rent; but the friends have a musical soirée (Schaunard the musician performs his satirical cantata "On the influence of blue on the arts"), which becomes a wild party, rousing the ire of the neighbours, and the revellers are all driven out; Mimi has already slipped away to start a liaison with a rich count.

Act 3 in both operas is about the attempts of the couples to reconcile or bust, but in different settings, but they all know that you cannot live on love.

For Act 4 Leoncavallo makes the point that the story begins on Christmas Eve in 1837 and ends exactly a year later; and so Mimi's last words are "Addio Rodolfo. Natale! Natale!" (Noël! Christmas!).

A little detail in Puccini's first act rings a bell for me: two boys bring provisions, including un fascio di legna, a bundle of firewood. The word fascio gives us 'fascism' (symbolized by a set of bound rods). Legna (pronounced lenya) is the same as Spanish la leña ('firewood', the name of our street: La Leña Grove; yes indeed, somebody gathered up the big gum-tree branch that fell onto the track some time ago).

I do like the story about Puccini and Mascagni being bohemian garret-mates (in Milano) and buying the score of Parsifal, to learn from Wagner. There is a saying of Puccini to the effect that he and other composers of music are all mere monkeys playing about, in comparison to the Maestro. Manon Lescaut is said to have echoes of Tristan. Did he he study The Mastersingers as preparation for La Bohème?

Puccini also emulated Rossini as a recycler of his own music. We noted that his abandoned opera La Lupa (The she-wolf) lived on herein (Musetta's music?!), and the opening theme of La Bohème, which represents the bohemians, is snatched from his Capriccio sinfonico, a student exercise from his time in the Milan Conservatoire.

Why do people keep coming back to watch Mimi (and Violetta) die? Are they hoping that the director will allow the doctor to arrive with the cure for tuberculosis? And when Mimi says "Sto bene" ("I am well") and "Or sarò buona" ("I'll be good now") it is true; Rodolfo will shout "Mimì" in exhilaration not in despondency; and the happy couple can be united again (to continue their old quarrels).

The whole thing would probably be set in a sanatorium, where the patients keep visiting one another's rooms, secretly. And they don't pay their RENT (that alternative musical version of this story, which has been shown here in Palmerston North, New Zealand.)

If this opera is ever performed in Maaori, the heroine would have to change her name from Mimi; perhaps to Wiiwii (the Maaori word for 'French', for obvious reasons). Unfortunately the English word *wee-wee* means the same as Maaori *mimi*. But the leaks at the end of this opera will be from our eyes.