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La Bohème is one of the most performed of Puccini’s operas, and one of what are called “the big-three”- Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and La Bohème. These operas quickly established themselves in the operatic repertoire and have never left (DiGaetani 103). Puccini was a lyrical genius and he composed his music to fit the exact embodiment of the character and situation at hand. We are constantly reminded of the two ‘cardinal features’ of his musical language. These are richness of melody and attention to orchestral detail (Groos & Parker 86). These features are easily demonstrated by looking at selected musical excerpts from La Bohème. Puccini’s Bohème was based on the novel Scenes de la vie de Bohème by Henri Mürger. In March of 1893, after Puccini’s return from Turin after the premiere of Manon Lescaut, Puccini encountered his friend and fellow composer Leoncavallo. When Puccini mentioned that he was working on an opera based on Mürger’s novel Leoncavallo became furious. He reminded Puccini that he too was working on a setting of La Bohème, and that he had shown Puccini his libretto the previous winter. He even went as far as to offer the libretto to him. Now that he was composing the opera, he declared rights to it. This led the two composers to race to see who could finish his setting first. However, it was Puccini who won this race, premiering La Bohème in Turin in February, 1896. Leoncavallo’s La Bohème was produced in Venice the following year (Osborne 84). Henri Mürger’s Scenes de la vie de Bohème was a novel that aroused both comedic delight and pathos. For this reason Puccini insisted that his librettists, Giacosa and Illica, do the same. In the Preface to the libretto, Illica and Giacosa indicated the principles by which they used to bring to life Mürger’s novel. Carner paraphrases these principles like so; “(1) to reproduce the essential spirit of the novel, (2) To remain faithful to Mürger’s characters, (3) to reproduce, meticulously, certain details of the atmosphere, (4) to retain the general outline of Mürger’s narrative and follow his method in presenting the story in distinct tableaux, (5) to treat the comic and tragic episodes with the freedom required by the dramatization of a novel”(Carner 333). Most of La Bohème was composed at Torre del Lago where Puccini had many friends. During the composition of the opera, these friends formed the Bohème Club, which met in an old hut to eat, drink and play cards. Puccini was the Club’s honorary president, and the club even consisted of a list of club Rules, or ‘Articles’(Osborne 85). It was in this hut in December 1895, where Puccini brought three years work to an end. Puccini told his biographer that when he had finished composing the final scene of Mimi’s death, “I had to get up and, standing in the middle of my study, alone in the silence of the night, I began to weep like a child. It was as though I had seen my own child die”(Osborne 86). Puccini worried a great deal about the fate of his newly composed work. He felt that much depended on the success of La Bohème. He knew that the musical world was eager to find the successor to Verdi. After Puccini’s success with Manon Lescaut, he felt that he was a contender for the title.
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