La bohème’s Paris

This chapter analyses the ways in which La bohème was influenced by popular romantic representations of Paris and the ways in which it, in turn, helped shape them. It discusses the late nineteenth-century Italian fascination with French culture and the way in which Puccini’s opera was nostalgically depicting an old Paris that had been swept away by Baron Haussmann’s regeneration of the city. The chapter considers Puccini’s conception of Bohemianism, demonstrating that it had Italian as well as French roots. It examines the composer and his librettists’ reading of certain archetypal Bohemian figures, such as the good-hearted demimondaine, and of symbolic Parisian locations, such as the pavement café. The chapter concludes with a consideration of Puccini’s representation of ‘picturesque poverty’ and discusses the ways in which directors have attempted to make the work more or less gritty through their stagings.

Popularising La bohème

This chapter considers how the reception of La bohème developed across the course of the twentieth century, focusing in particular on debates about the opera’s status as ‘art’ or ‘entertainment’. It examines hostile responses to Puccini by modernist commentators and Italian nationalists who accused him of ‘decadence’ and pandering to the crowd. It discusses the work’s appropriation by celebrity singers, in spite of the fact that the work was not conceived as a star vehicle. The role of recordings and Bohème films in the opera’s rise to canonical status is considered. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the ways in which music from the opera has been used in films, incorporated into popular songs, and used as the basis for other works of popular culture.

La bohème’s travels

This chapter, on La bohème’s international reception, considers initial responses to the work in Italy, across Europe, and in North and South America. It reveals that at the outset the opera was often performed by minor troupes in secondary theatres and took some time to establish itself in the operatic canon. Certain responses to the work’s music and drama were common whatever the national context; others were coloured by specific local considerations and preoccupations. Puccini’s opera was, variously, held up against the standard of Wagnerian music drama, criticised for its episodic structure, chastised for breaking the harmonic rulebook, and even considered immoral. The sheer popular appeal of the opera also prompted varying responses in different countries. Some unusual early performance practices are also discussed here.

La bohème in context

This chapter provides a brief overview of the genesis of La bohème, discussing Puccini’s relationship with his librettists and publisher, and where the work sat in his career. It considers the place of the opera within the nineteenth-century Italian operatic tradition (including its relationship to the verismo movement), as well as the extent to which Puccini was influenced by foreign composers. It identifies the opera’s key stylistic hallmarks and explains the relationship between music, characterisation, and dramatic pacing. The chapter then examines how Puccini treats the opera’s core dramatic themes of love, friendship, death, and nostalgia, as well as considering his representation of male and female characters.

Setting the scene

This chapter introduces Puccini’s La bohème as a much-loved work that sits at the apex of the operatic canon. It explains that the following chapters will explore the opera’s not uncomplicated ascent to this position, investigating landmarks in its reception history as well as its musical, dramatic, and emotional appeal. The introduction sets out the book’s remit as a cultural history of the opera, examining its characterisation and treatment of particular dramatic themes, its representations of place and gender, its international reception, its connections with popular culture, and the varied ways in which it has been staged.

La bohème reimagined

This chapter examines the various ways in which directors have staged La bohème, and analyses what such productions have to tell us about perceptions of the opera in various historical periods and in various different cultures. It considers the politics of operatic updating and Regietheater, and the economic factors that sometimes condition conservative approaches to staging. The chapter analyses some extremely successful, long-running traditional productions as well as wide range of updated productions. It considers the new meanings that might be brought to the opera through productions that shift the action to eras and places drastically different from those stipulated by Puccini and his librettists.