La Bohème

Puccini, Giacomo

album cover

The Stirring Escapades of Starving Artists

Opera began in the 1600s as an attempt to revive Greek tragedy, and it's been a tug-of-war between words and music ever since. The opera world has suffered through works at both extremes—recklessly wordy narratives in search of musical anchor, and gorgeous music lacking plot lines. Italy's Giacomo Puccini (1858–1924) achieved a very happy medium with this, a breakthrough work considered his "perennial youthful" opera. Throughout his voyeuristic tour of Paris's starving-artist bohemia in the nineteenth century, Puccini sprinkles genuinely memorable melodies, songs that would be deeply affecting independent of any narrative. All of his musical decisions were informed by the necessities of the drama, and timed to last exactly as long as needed to advance the story, and no more.

The opera, the basic out-lines of which were hijacked for the '90s musical Rent, begins on Christmas Eve in Paris's Latin Quarter. The year is 1830, and the painter Marcello (sung by Rolando Panerai) and his roommate, the poet Rodolfo (Luciano Pavarotti), are shivering because there's no fuel to heat the fire. Rodolfo burns a manuscript he's been writing, there's a confrontation with the landlord, and after several other unemployed bohemians traipse through on their way to make merry at Café Momus, Rodolfo finds himself alone with neighbor Mimi, who's looking for a light for her candle. By the end of Act 1, which culminates in Rodolfo's beautiful aria, they've fallen in love. The three subsequent acts pick up melodic threads of the first, and sometimes evolve entirely new themes. The best of these, in the second act, is the aria of Musetta, a vixen whose appearance at the café is intended to make former lover Marcello jealous. In the third, an extended discussion finds Rodolfo explaining why he's no longer hot for Mimi, a position that later fills him with remorse; in the fourth, the dying Mimi (the sopranos seem to perish at the end of many Puccini operas) hallucinates a glimpse into the hereafter, aided by florid string counterlines.

This 1973 recording revolves around two of the premier Italian voices of recent times, the richly hued and effortlessly resonant tenor Pavarotti (heard here at a golden moment before he became a brand) and the perpetually-in-motion Mirella Freni, who makes a bewitching Mimi. A key player here is conductor Herbert von Karajan, who was, according to musicians, himself an extremely gifted actor. When he demonstrated a phrase to a singer, he was able to completely embody the nuances of the character—so much so that even the minor players seem to spring to life when they make their entrances. Of course Karajan has help in this regard—the coloristic splendor and firm gestures of the mighty Berlin Philharmonic.

Genre: Opera
Released: 1973, London
Key Tracks: Act 1: "O soave fanciulla"; Act 2: "Quando men vo"; Act 4: "Sono andati?"
Another Interpretation: RCA Symphony Orchestra (Thomas Beecham, cond.).
Catalog Choice: Turandot
Next Stop: Vincenzo Bellini, Norma
Book Pages: 619–620

Buy this Recording

Share this page: