Maestro Jorge Parodi's Zoom talk about La Bohème, April 15, 2020, at 2 PM EDT
La Bohème is the love story of Mimi, a seamstress (which was often a euphemism for a kept woman) and Rodolfo, a starving poet. They lived the romanticized bohemian life in mid XIX century Paris (similar to the romanticized life of artists in early XX Century Paris that included Picasso, Cocteau, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Satie). Mimi meets Rodolfo on Christmas Eve and they have a passionate but short relationship, they decide to break up in late winter and she dies, probably of tuberculosis, in early spring. Also in the opera we watch the relationship between Rodolfo’s friend, Marcello, a painter, and his on-and-off girlfriend, Musetta, a singer. Completing their circle of friends are the musician Shaunard, and the philosopher Colline.
Why is La Bohème so popular? It might be because the music is beautiful, the characters are endearing and the story is bittersweet. In less than 2 hours one really feels like one knows these people and that you have really witnessed their whole relationship up to their heartbreaking farewell.
This is typical of Puccini's golden age operas, in particular La Boheme, Tosca and Butterfly, all composed one after the other, with 4 years in between and by the team of Puccini, Luigi Illica (book) and Giuseppe Giacosa (lyrics).
These mature works each tell a moving love story, one that centers entirely on the feminine protagonist and ends in a tragic resolution. All speak the same refined and limpid musical language of the orchestra that creates the subtle play of thematic reminiscences. The music always emerges from the words, indissolubly bound to their meaning and to the images they evoke.
The majority of Puccini’s operas illustrate a theme defined in Il tabarro: “Chi ha vissuto per amore, per amore si morì” (“He who has lived for love, has died for love”). This theme is played out in the fate of his heroines—women who are devoted body and soul to their lovers, are tormented by feelings of guilt, and are punished by the infliction of pain until in the end they are destroyed. In his treatment of this theme, Puccini combines compassion and pity for his heroines with a strong streak of sadism: hence the strong emotional appeal of the Puccinian type of opera. The action of his operas is uncomplicated and self-evident, so that the spectators, even if they do not understand the words, readily comprehend what is taking place on the stage. La Bohème, which marks Puccini’s emergence as a fully mature and original composer, contains some of the most memorable arias and musical scenes in any opera.
Let’s hear our friend Denis Sedov, who we heard last singin Sarastro in our lovely Magic Flute last year, singing Colline’s aria Vecchia Zimarra. Colline, the philosopher friend of Rodolfo, decided to pawn his coat to get some cash to buy medicine for Mimi. In this aria he says good bye to the coat. This performance is from last summer open air production by the Mariinsky Theater in Saint Petersburg.
This aria introduced in the last act new melodies that have never been heard in the opera, and this makes this moment very special.
Throughout, Puccini relies on short musical motifs that represent characters, themes, and moods so that the music underscores and highlights aspects of the drama.
One example is Mimi’s theme that first appears when she knocks at Rodolfo’s door. The same tune will appear at the beginning of her first aria, when she says “They call me Mimi”, forever associating that tune with her.
In fact this association between this lovely tune and Mimi is one of the most famous example of leivmotive, or musical motive that is associated with a character or idea that Puccini learnt mostly from Wagner, although this technique had appeared in Handel, Mozart, Donizetti and many other composers. This motive became immediately very popular, and Puccini himself quotes it in Il Tabarro, when the Song Vendor tries to sell a song inspired by the story of Mimi.
In the case of Mimì and Rodolfo, musical phrases bring the opera full circle and let the music reveal the memories recurring in the minds of the lovers as they say farewell. Perhaps in another meeting we will explore all the different motives associated with each character and how they appear throughout the opera to create familiarity and help the audience bond with them.
One very interesting feature of this opera is Puccini’s use of material that he had composed before. The idea of recycling is very common in music, in particular in earlier period before music printing was the standard. Handel (and all the Baroque composers) would reuse the same tune in several operas, especially if the opera was performed in a different city or several years apart, even with the same lyrics. Rossini and Donizetti did this often and even Bellini, who wrote not that many operas by comparison, recycle whole sections of earlier unsuccessful operas. One nice example is the famous overture of the Barber of Seville: it was actually recycled from two earlier Rossini operas, Aureliano in Palmira and Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra, and thus contains none of the thematic material in Il barbiere di Siviglia itself. This happened because the composers were either short in time, or wanted to fully profit from a worthy musical tune.
I’m talking about borrowings (which is the technical term for music recycling) because Puccini uses a tune he wrote 8 years before the premiere of La Bohème for the finale of Act 3. This song was written to be published in a periodical called Paganini. We think that he wrote the lyrics and he even set to music the signature!
Let me show you a picture of the first page of the song: you can see the year of publication (1888).
Let’s hear our friend, soprano Kinneret Ely sing Sole e Amore. I recorded the piano accompaniment and sent it to Kinneret, who is with OiW General and Artistic Director Naama Zahavi-Ely in Tel Aviv. Kinneret recorded for us earlier today! Here it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24QvsgtvEt8&feature=youtu.be
(The translation in the subtitles is by Laura Stanfield Prichard, Boston Baroque, with our thanks)
This beautiful tune was used almost note by note in the Finale of Act III of La Boheme. Puccini uses also the same key and the same accompaniment, and he repeats it twice. In this double duo we see the moment that Rodolfo and Mimi decide to break up, but not until the spring when warmth and flowers will be their companions; and we also hear an argument (one of many) between Marcello and Musetta. This recording is from the Opera di Modena, from the Teatro now called Pavarotti, because Pavarotti was born in Modena. And the main characters are played by Luciano Pavarotti and Mirella Freni, with Lucio Gallo as Marcello and Anna Rita Taliento as Musetta.
What a great way to close our chat. Now I will open the mic to everyone who would like to ask questions about Puccini, La Boheme or anything you heard today, and hopefully I’ll have something interesting to respond!
(Unfortunately we don't have a transcript of the Q&A session)
I know that there are people in this group who have supported us generously again and again, and we really and truly appreciate it. If anybody would like to contribute, you can do so from home through our website (see the “donate” link below). We also have a fundraising auction going on online April 13-30, 2020, you will find a link to it on the website home page as well. Thank you so much, and we hope to see you in person in September!