Introducing… La bohème
Exploring one of opera's greatest tragic love stories.
Get a taste of the production in this trailer:
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A brief introduction
When seamstress Mimi meets struggling writer Rodolfo they fall immediately and passionately in love. But while Paris is the magical city of love, it’s also a very real place of hardship, as the young Bohemians soon discover when poverty and sickness tear them cruelly apart…
La bohème is a tragedy that doesn’t know it’s a tragedy, whose characters chat and tease, fight and flirt as casually as any people going about their daily lives, unaware of Death looming in the background.
Have your tissues at the ready. Expect an emotional rollercoaster, heightened by Puccini’s heart-wrenching score.
Why not to miss it
La bohème has a fixed place in the top 10 most-performed operas worldwide. Yet Floris Visser’s celebrated production gives you the opportunity to discover the opera anew, with its lush orchestral writing and big chorus moments, beautifully contrasted by the paired-back monochrome staging.
Visser’s striking staging opened to critical acclaim during Festival 2022. The Guardian praised the production for putting ‘a dark spin on this story of doomed lovers – which only heightens the life-affirming vibrancy of the music’, The Times described it as ‘a fresh take on a Puccini staple’, while The Evening Standard called it ‘Bracing and deeply affecting’
A great moment to look out for
Rodolfo’s Act I aria ‘Che gelida manina’ is one of the most famous love-declarations in all opera.
The aria’s first section sets the scene. In the moonlight, to a shimmering accompaniment, the lovers’ hands touch for the first time as they search for Mimi’s lost key. The second section is more daring musically, as Rodolfo explains the life and philosophy of the bohemians (‘Who am I? I am a poet’). It’s in the third section where Rodolfo finally declares himself and we hear the opera’s most recognisable love-theme in the violins and voice rising to the famous top C.
Get a feel for the moment in the video below. Watch Tenor Long Long, who played Rodolfo during Festival 2022, perform ‘Che gelida manina’ in the historic Glyndebourne Organ Room.
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Image credits: Main image – Bill Cooper; image design Louise Richardson, Glyndebourne Tour 2022 images – Richard Hubert Smith