La Bohème

In the organizer's words:

The opera tells the story of a Parisian artists' flat-sharing community. The free life of the four residents, constantly plagued by financial worries, is thrown further out of balance when the poet Rodolfo falls in love with the seamstress Mimì and the painter Marcello meets his former lover Musetta again.

The loose episodic form of the novel inspired Puccini and his librettists to create a musical-dramatic sequence of images that was completely new to Italian opera. The text, based on everyday language, and the consistently symphonic music form a unique experiment in Puccini's oeuvre.

Puccini's deeply touching and tone-painting music describes the world of the bohemians in 19th century Paris just as vividly as the emotional lives of the characters. La Bohème thus became one of the most successful operas of all time. This popular opera is performed in a spectacular world of images, inspired by the unique backdrop of the cathedral steps.