As they tear it up and throw it into the stove, the philosopher Colline and the musician Schaunard comes in with food and fuel. When Marcello complains of the cold, Rodolfo offers to burn his manuscript for some heat.

The poet Rodolfo is at a table writing while the artist Marcello is working on his painting. In an ultimate sacrifice, the young man pushes his beloved away, so she may find a rich suitor who would be able to take better care of her.It is Christmas Eve in a cold garret occupied by four Bohemians in the Latin Quarter of 1830 Paris. Rodolfo and Mimì start an incendiary relationship, marred quickly by the seamstress’ failing health. A colourful cast of characters around them help complete the picture of charming decadence and living for the moment that define the Bohemian lifestyle. At the core of La Bohème is the love story between the young poet Rodolfo and the seamstress Mimì. However, the two writers produced much of the storyline themselves, only borrowing some characters and minor events from Murger’s original. Teatro Aurora in Florence-Scandicci produces a faithful rendition of the classic opera La Bohème.Īs source text, Puccini’s librettists Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa used Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger, a collection of stories that cast a playful, romanticised eye on the Bohemian lifestyle of the impoverished artists and dreamers in the Latin Quarter of Paris in the 1830s.

Its evergreen themes of love against the odds, financial success versus emotional happiness, and the ultimate sacrifice for the loved one’s sake pair perfectly with Puccini’s evocative and intense score. It quickly achieved popular success and became one of Puccini’s calling cards, earning regular revivals through the years. The opera about the ultimate sacrifice of two impoverished lovers whose bond proves stronger than the yearning for material riches and luxury had its premiere on 1 February 1896 at Teatro Regio in Turin. In a powerful affirmation that money cannot buy love, Giacomo Puccini crafted La Bohème.

La boheme opera duration