OperaDB

La bohème

also The Bohemians, La Vie de bohème

opera · scene in quattro quadri

Composer Giacomo Puccini

Librettist Giuseppe Giacosa, Luigi Illica

Synopsis

Four friends share a freezing garret in Paris: a poet, a painter, a musician and a philosopher, with no money and nothing to burn. On Christmas Eve the poet Rodolfo is left alone to work when a neighbour, a seamstress named Mimì, knocks to ask for a light for her candle.

Versions

Key facts

Premiere
13 June 1898, Théâtre Lyrique, Paris
Acts
4
Language
Italian (it)
Setting
Paris, about 1830.

What's different

The definitive text, and the one performed today, which is why it is primary here rather than the Turin premiere. Puccini made substantial changes to the second tableau, adding a scene and rewriting its finale, and Ricordi published the new edition in 1898. A revision on that scale is a version where the later adjustments to Tosca are not: new music and a new scene make a different text, while reworked orchestration and altered vocal lines refine the same one. It was first heard at the Opéra-Comique's temporary home on the Place du Châtelet, sung in French and billed as La Vie de bohème. The translation is a fact about that performance rather than about the version: unlike the Paris Tannhäuser, which Wagner composed to French words, the text Puccini settled on here is the Italian one.

Dramatis personae

Role Voice Created by
Mimì A seamstress, who lives in the same house as the four friends. soprano Julia Guiraudon
Musetta A singer. soprano Jeanne Tiphaine
Rodolfo A poet. tenor Adolphe Maréchal
Marcello A painter. baritone Max Bouvet
Schaunard A musician. baritone Lucien Fugère
Colline A philosopher. bass Jacques Isnardon
Parpignol A toy seller. tenor Barnolt
Benoît The landlord of the house the four friends live in. bass Hippolyte Belhomme
Alcindoro A state councillor. bass Maurice Jacquet
Sergente dei doganieri A sergeant of the customs guard. bass —

Source

Written from