Luigi Illica (1857–1919)

I read this G. Schirmer’s opera librettos booklet in preparation for the opera itself. It turned out to have been a very good move. Act II has crazy fun busy staging and a huge cast. Knowing the opera freed me somewhat from reading the teleprompter during the show and absorbed more of the opera itself. Without plans to watch the opera though, this booklet is unlikely to be a riveting read, with a story well known to most. BUT, I will say there are some great lines that are simply charming show more and poetic to describe otherwise dull or even sad events.

A very brief plot summary: Four dear friends, a poet (Rodolfo), a painter (Marcello), a philosopher (Colline), a musician (Schaunard), share their lives and often pool their money to help each other while they all struggle with their ‘careers’ in the Latin Quarters of Paris in 1830. Enter Mimi, who falls in love with the Rodolfo. But it was also revealed early that Mimi is sick – but how sick? (dum, dum, dummm). Also enter Musetta, a singer, who is the sometimes girlfriend/lover, of Marcello; the two provided the comic relief as they fight with each other constantly but is utterly in love with each other as well. As Mimi’s illness revealed itself to be much more that a cough (officially, consumption), Rodolfo breaks up with Mimi as he is too poor to provide for her, not even to keep her warm. As Mimi’s life approaches the end, she goes to find Rodolfo and to die beside him; everyone gathered to do what they can for her in her last moments.

Side note #1: La Boheme = The Bohemians. Back then in Paris, many of these so called Bohemians are in fact born bourgeois, but chose to live the life of the arts.

Side note #2: I won’t acknowledge that Rent, the Musical, is loosely based off La Boheme. La Boheme is charmingly, humorously endearing while Rent (though good) is drug filled grunge. Let’s keep them separated. :P

Some quotes:
The irony in Roldolfo’s burning of his own drama/manuscript to keep him and Marcello warm:
“Rodolfo: My genius is burning, aflame with inspiration!
Marcello: To burn my new painting?
Rodolfo: No, who could endure the aroma!
But my drama,
Its passionate ardor will warm us both!
Marcello (with comic terror): You don’t mean to read it? How awful!
Rodolfo: No, the paper will crumble to ashes,
The Muse will return to Olympus,
A masterpiece goes to perdition!
The loss is prodigious!
…..
What words of wisdom!
Right to the point!
Amid these bluish flickering flames
A passionate love-scene goes up in smoke!
It pops and crackles!
There! Those were kisses!”

The landlord, Benoit, describes the kind of ladies that he likes, catching up on some side action, away from the Missus:
“I was a timid boy,
Now I am getting even! You know
I’ve a certain weakness.
For certain ladies…
You see…
Not that I like them portly
Or downright tubby,
Or even chubby,
A blooming full-moon. ----- (Reviewer’s note: This made me laugh.)
But skinny, lean and skinny,
No, sir, no!
When they are skinny,
They are malicious,
And sometimes even vicious.
I don’t care for their kisses,
Least of all for – my Misses!...”

Rodolfo and Mimi declare their love for the first time (actually the first night they met!):
Rodolfo:
“O adorable angel,
O gentle vision,
Surrounded by the moonlight’s silver glow,
In your sweet person
I realize my fondest dreams of long ago!
Never have I know before
So divine a rapture!
Radiant with Happiness
My heart is glowing,
Now at last I have found you,
My one and only love!”
Mimi:
“Ah! I’ve never known before,
A love so tender and glowing!
Oh, how its soothing power
Overcomes my heart with gladness,
How sweet to be in love!”

Rodolfo laments his own inadequacies in helping Mimi heal from her sickness and fears she is getting worse:
“I love Mimi, my love for her is stronger
Than ever!
But I will lose her,
But I will lose her,
Mimi is dreadfully ailing.
Day by day she is failing.
I fear the spark of life has lost its power!”
“And my room is a den of poverty,
No fire is going,
Fiercely the wind is blowing,
Ice-cold, relentless!
She is always so cheerful,
Bu remorse overcomes me.
I have aided the fearful ill
Which destroys her!”
“Mimi is like a flower,
Lacking water and sunshine,
But you can’t revive a blossom
By love alone, by love alone.” show less

this is a very nice introduction and overview of the popular Puccini opera. a 1964 production featuring Renata Scotto is on two CDs and the full libretto is annotated for each track by the author. a history of the opera and its inauspicious premier is included with a biography of Puccini.

This is an excellent translation of the libretto of a deservedly popular opera. Unlike many translations, this one is not at all stiff and formal; on the contrary, it flows, much like the opera itself. The Dover edition is a particulary nice size and weight, making it convenient to carry to the opera or to read while listening to a recording of it.

As early as May 1889 Puccini told his publisher, Giulio Ricordi, that he wanted to make an opera out of a melodrama which the highly regarded French playwright Victorien Sardou had written as a sensational acting vehicle for Sarah Bernhardt. Her gift for mime, incidentally, accounts for the long wordless scene in the opera's second act, after the villainous police chief has been murdered. Set in Rome in 1800 during the struggle between the repressive royalist regime and the republican show more revolutionaries, the play was called La Tosca.

The opera was a success at the box office, but the critics generally turned thumbs down on it, finding its sadism and scenes of attempted rape and physical and mental torture repulsive. The same criticism surfaced in England after the opera's first performance at Covent Garden in July, which was attended by Puccini himself, but the general reaction was highly enthusiastic. show less