La Boheme ends the 2017/2018 season at Teatro Dell’Opera di Roma. It is a new production in coproduction with Teatro Regio di Torino. Anita Hartig is Mimi, alongside Giorgio Berrugi (Rodolfo), Olga Kulchynska (Musetta), Massimo Cavalletti (Marcello), Simone Del Savio (Schaunard) and Antonio di Matteo (Colline).
Puccini constructed a story about young, innocent, hopeful, bohemians, whose dreams were cut short in atmosphere of hardship, but whose lives continue to touch us today. The beauty of the music, the dramatic effectiveness, the orchestral motifs and the sentimentality of the story, as befits Italian melodrama, are the components that made La Bohème one of the most loved operas ever.
The Story
La Boheme is one of the very few operas in the history of the genre have conveyed the fragility of happiness. The intense love between Mimì and Rodolfo battles to survive, without success, beset by the hardships of poverty, severe cold and misfortune. In its tragic conclusion, we see the characteristically grim reality of Italian verismo. To put music to his story, Giacomo Puccini used a refined harmonic language and a series of extraordinarily beautiful melodies, to give life to a young group of Parisian artists of the 19th century, who dream that a stroke of good luck will bring them success.
All too briefly, the cruel end which awaits these characters is eased with the delicacy of Mimi. She is a perfect portrait of a kind-hearted, virtuous woman who is cheated by destiny. The premiere was conducted by a young Arturo Toscanini. Despite the initially cool reaction by the audience and critics, it was not long before La Boheme became an essential pillar of romantic Italian repertory.
