La Bohème

Cheeky, happy and free – that is how the four young artists Rodolfo, Marcello, Schaunard and Colline imagine their everyday lives. In order to save on rent, they have set up a shared flat. They skillfully distance themselves from the bourgeois world around them and celebrate their artistry. These four bohemians are joined for a winter by the seamstress Mimì, with whom Rodolfo falls in love, and Musetta, who returns to her former lover Marcello after a brief affair with a rich dandy. But while Musetta overwhelms Marcello with her constant need for entertainment, Rodolfo does not want to take responsibility for Mimì, who is suffering from tuberculosis. Shortly before her death, she appears one last time in the four friends' cramped flat and conjures up the idyll of days gone by with Rodolfo once again before she dies in his arms. Four helpless dreamers remain. For his fourth opera, Giacomo Puccini had his two lyricists Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illcia compile individual excerpts from Henri Murger's serial novel Scènes de la vie de bohème . Puccini's contrasting music, which takes into account the bohemians' exuberant temperament as well as the melancholic moments of the plot, gives the work its great impact. The composer skilfully coordinated the musical material with the opera's scenic events, thus ensuring its continued success to this day.