GIACOMO PUCCINI
LA BOHÈME
CONTENTS
P.
4
SYNOPSIS P.
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TOILET OF THE GRACES HENRI MURGER P.
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PARIS, AROUND 1900 KARLHEINZ ROSCHITZ P.
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THE CREATION OF LA BOHÈME OLIVER LÁNG
P.
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PUCCINI’S THEATRICAL INSTINCT ANDREAS LÁNG P.
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PUCCINI AND LA BOHÈME OLIVER LÁNG P.
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THE ROMANCE OF POVERTY THOMAS CHORHERR P.
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LA BOHÈME AT THE WIENER STAATSOPER ANDREAS LÁNG P.
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IMPRINT
GIACOMO PUCCINI
LA BOHÈME OPERA in four acts Libretto by GIUSEPPE GIACOSA & LUIGI ILLICA based on SCÈNES DE LA VIE DE BOHÈME by HENRI MURGER
ORCHESTRA
STAGE ORCHESTRA
2 flutes / 1 piccolo / 2 oboes 1 cor anglais / 2 clarinets 1 bass clarinet / 2 bassoons 4 horns / 3 trumpets 3 trombones / 1 bass tuba / harp timpani and percussion violin I / violin II / viola cello / double bass 4 trumpets / 4 piccolos 2 drums / glasses / bells
AUTOGRAPH Ricordi archives, Milan WORLD PREMIÈRE 1 FEBRUARY 1896 Teatro Regio, Turin PREMIÈRE IN VIENNA 5 OCTOBER 1897 Theater an der Wien PREMIÈRE AT THE HOUSE ON THE RING 25 NOV 1903 Vienna Court Opera DURATION
2 H 30 MIN
INCL. 1 INTERMISSION
LA BOHÈME
SYNOPSIS ACT I Two young artists – Rodolfo, a poet, and Marcello, a painter – plan to work over Christmas in their squalid garret. They have no money, it is cold, and the manuscript that Rodolfo feeds the fire with provides only a few moments of warmth. Colline, a philosopher, also comes home empty-handed – the pawnshop was closed, so he was unable to pawn any of his books. Only Schaunard, a musician, had more luck with a rich Englishman and brings home plenty of food, heating fuel and money. The landlord Benoît demands the rent. The young artists draw him into a trap. When he tells them about his amorous escapades, they feign moral outrage and show him the door. When the others leave to go and celebrate, Rodolfo remains alone to finish an article. There is a knock at the door. A young woman, Mimì, asks Rodolfo to light her candle, which has gone out. The two young people fall in love.
ACT II The Latin Quarter is abuzz with celebrations. Rodolfo buys Mimì a bonnet and introduces her to his friends. Marcello runs into his former lover Musetta, who enters on the arm of Alcindoro, a suitor as old as he is rich. In full view of all, she gives free rein to her seductive skills and once again wins Marcello’s heart.
Previous pages: STEPHEN COSTELLO as RODOLFO BOAZ DANIEL as MARCELLO
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SYNOPSIS
ACT III A gloomy February morning at the customs barrier at the border between a Parisian suburb and the inner city. Workers, waggo ners and dairywomen are allowed to enter, passing the cabaret where Marcello and Musetta are lodging. Mimì is looking for and finds Marcello. She laments Rodolfo’s jealousy and their frequent quarrels. In conversation with Rodolfo, Marcello later learns the reasons for his disdainful behaviour: Mimì is deathly ill and has only a short time to live. Rodolfo believes that the cause of her illness is his poverty, so he now wants to separate from her. Mimì has overheard their entire conversation. The two lovers decide not to part until the spring.
ACT IV Several months later. Both couples have separated. Rodolfo and Marcello reflect wistfully on days gone by. Suddenly, Musetta arrives with Mimì, who is clearly close to death. The friends pawn their last few possessions to fulfil the invalid’s last wish for a muff and to purchase medicine. Rodolfo and Mimì once again find solace in happy memories. Surrounded by her friends, Mimì dies.
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HENRI MURGER
TOILET OF THE GRACES Miss Mimì, who mostly slept until late in the day, woke up one morning at the stroke of ten and was very surprised not to find Rodolphe beside her, and not even in the bed room. Yet she had seen him at night, before she went to sleep, sitting at his desk. He had wanted to spend the night on a literary work he had been commissioned with, and which young Mimì was particularly interested in seeing completed. The poet had aroused hopes in his girlfriend that he would use some of the earnings from his work to buy her a particular spring dress – she had seen the pattern one day in the “Deux Magots”, a famous draper’s shop where Mimì’s vanity often drew her to worship at the display window. This is why she was concerned about the progress of the commission. While Rodolphe was writing, she frequently went up to him, leaned over his shoulder and asked, in a serious voice, “How’s my dress coming along?” “Don’t worry, one sleeve is already there.” Rodolphe replied. One night, Mimì heard Rodolphe tapping his fingers, which almost always meant that he was satisfied with his work, and she sat up abruptly in bed, stuck her head through the curtains and called, “Is my dress ready?” “Look,” Rodolphe replied, showing her four large pages, closely written, “I’ve just finished the bodice.” “That’s lovely,” Mimì said, “Now there’s just the skirt – how many pages like that does it take for a skirt?” “That depends, but since you’re not that tall, we can get a skirt for ten pages of fifty lines and thirty-three characters.” “I’m not that tall,” Mimì said, gravely, “but it shouldn’t look as if we’re skimping on the material. Skirts are worn very broad now, and I’d like to have some lovely folds so that it swishes.” “Right,” Rodolphe replied, just as seriously. “I’ll add ten characters to the line, and then it’ll swish.” And Mimì went back to sleep happily.
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RACHEL WILLIS-SØRENSEN as MIMÌ BENJAMIN BERNHEIM as RODOLFO
KARLHEINZ ROSCHITZ
PARIS, AROUND 1900 PARIS, FIN DE SIÈCLE AND “INNER RENEWAL” “I don’t know anyone who described Paris at that time as well as Puccini did in La bohème,” the young Claude Debussy wrote enthusiastically after hearing Puccini’s scenes from Henri Murger’s Scènes de la vie de bohème in the libretto by Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica for the first time. The energy of the music could blow you away, if you didn’t have a tight hold. But what most surprised Debussy was the fact that when Puccini was working on La bohème in the 1890s and gave it to the Teatro Regio in Turin for the world première in 1896, he didn’t know Paris and its economic and cultural prosperity and new military strength at all. Puccini associated Paris with the images, emotions and attitudes which the journalist and painter Louis-Henri Murger had described from 1847 in his Scènes de la vie de bohème. Murger drew pictures from the artistic proletariat, living on credit, starving, scraping money together but also childishly squandering their meagre gains. With his ideas of “living on the edge”, Murger was a decisive influence in the creation of the stereotype of the artist as poor,
solitary, rejected, a persecuted avantgardist and “maudit” (outcast). How ever, a particularly noteworthy feature of these “scenes” is that there is no sense of discrepancy between Murger’s literary original and Puccini’s music theatre, “the mighty enemy which seized in its vampire-like embrace a work which, despite its broad scope, was as light as gossamer”. In contrast to Puccini’s Manon Les caut, world premièred in Turin in 1893, based on Abbé Prevost’s novel, there is no sign anywhere in La bohème of any rift between the literary original and the opera’s characters. Which means that it is presumably due to Murger’s images of the milieu that Puccini developed such an unerring sense for the atmosphere, a genuinely “French sensibility”. This was so strong that he was able with his work to offer a timeless view of a sociological situation which we can even today imagine as “French bohemia”. Right from the start, this story and these characters breathe life into Henri Murger’s poetic and metaphorical claim that you have to have lived poor to develop into a true artist.
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PA R IS, A ROU N D 1900
However, Puccini also found “magical” places in Murger’s tales, cityscapes and everyday scenes in Paris which inspired him with their evocative power. For example, the Café Momus, which Puccini placed in the Quartier Latin, although Murger’s original locates it on the right bank, near the church of Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois. The Momus gives Puccini the opportunity to include the cityscape with views of the boulevards in his action, to create the atmosphere of the boulevards in his composition, with social critique in the scenes of the pleasures of life and love, but also an impressive parade of casual strollers, artists and military. The name also recalls Momus, a figure in Greek mythology, the god of writers and poets, evil-spirited blame and unfair criticism. In the opera’s third act, Puccini shows the so-called Barrière d’Enfer, the old gateway with the tollhouse pavilions designed by Claude Nicolas Ledoux at the Place Denfert-Rochereau in the 14th arrondissement (Montparnasse area). It is difficult to say if the symbolism is deliberate, suspected or accidental, but this is the location of the entrance to the Paris “underworld”. The former quarries become catacombs, part of which were used from the start of the 19th century as ossuaries for some six million Parisian citizens. In Puccini, this is a place for drunkards, wastrels, whores, human trafficking. Here, Mimì recognizes in her despair that she is close to death… A Eurydice of the petty bourgeoisie, at the gates of hell! Politics and radical attention to social issues were probably of little interest to Puccini. But Murger’s descriptions inspired him to show poverty and prosperity, joie de vivre and deep grief
in this Tristan and Isolde story set in a world of very young, immature, enthusiastic but not particularly gifted flotsam and jetsam. Even so, his France reflects a little of the flourishing world of great prosperity which emerged between the great crisis at the start of the 1890s and the First World War. There were great strides in science, social reforms, the arts, in society and fashion. Puccini was naturally familiar with the grandiose 1889 Paris Exposition, which gave France the reputation of impressive innovative strength in the fields of industry, technology, science and art. The customs tariff of 1892, the expanded railway network, improved cultivation, irrigation projects, new agricultural machinery, advances in chemistry and technology all meant better yields… The newspapers were full of these reports. Industry converted to mass production, new forms of energy generation, automobiles, steam turbines opened up new possibilities. As a car driver, Puccini was interested in this. The first line on the Paris Metro was opened in 1900. Socially, this all meant a rise in the upper middle class to good positions, made possible not least by the growth in wealth. The salon became the focus of social life. This development also meant major changes for the classes populaires (workers and peasants) who moved to the cities. While 10-15 hour working days were still the rule, workers won the fight for laws to protect them. The General Confederation of Labour (CGT), a very revolutionary organization formed in 1895, pushed through higher wages. However, the housing of the “classes populaires” remained very primitive and as devoid
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KARLHEINZ ROSCHITZ
of comforts as the dilapidated attic of the four artists in La bohème. But on Saturday, people went to the café with its live music… When Victor Hugo died in 1885, many of those attending his splendid state funeral had a feeling that an epoch was coming to an end, the brilliance of Paris as a cultural metropolis was in danger of fading. The academyoriented Parnassians were becoming a thing of the past. A new literary generation was arising, who in their youth had experienced France’s great spiritual crisis, initiated by the military defeat in 1870 by the Prussians and their German allies and the deposition of Napoleon III. The new generation was exhilarated by Richard Wagner and sought new forms of art. The leaders of the new poets, Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud and Stéphane Mallarmé, tried to communicate their hallucinations and obsessions, dreams and fears through symbols, in a language which, like music, was intended to act directly on its audience without the help of rationality. The result was the dark, mysterious, musical lyricism of the Symbolists – “mystery is the true home of poetry”! They were soon followed by the Unanimists, young poets and artists who formed a brotherly cooperative and operated a publishing house, following the same trends as the Scottish and Viennese groups of artists in their atelier concept with its socialist overtones. The novels also showed a move away from the aesthete culture. Writers dived into the political struggle, for example in the Dreyfus affair, where the two views of the world clashed, but also to work for national and religious
traditions, for progress and humanity – like Anatole France and Romain Rolland – and to create an “inner renewal” (positivism versus idealism). The contrast between the idealistic élite and the prevailing materialism was particularly glaring in the theatres. The small provincial theatres disappeared. In the cafés, singers like Polin, Mayol and soon Mistinguette were successful with a relatively undemanding repertoire, music halls like the Folies Bergère, Oympia and Parisiana made Paris world famous for its cabarets. Moulin de la Galette, Tabarin, Moulin Rouge and the circus competed with the theatre. It was not surprising that in this environment the literary theatre, for example of Symbolist Maurice Maeter linck, Romain Rolland or the young Paul Claudet – like grand opera, parti cularly by the idol Richard Wagner, and to a lesser extent Jules Massenet, Camille Saint-Saëns or Vincent d’Indy – were reserved to the (educated) bourgeoisie. Theatre experts could work as they might on stagings (as in the Théâtre Libre founded in 1887 or the Théâtre d’Art founded in 1893). Nevertheless the world première of Claude Debussy’s lyric opera Pelléas et Mélisande in 1902 still launched a genuine revolution in the opera scene, even though the public rejected it initially. The revolution was most marked in visual art, and particularly painting, where the bourgeoisie saw a destruction of its picture of the world, led by Paul Gauguin from Pont-Aven since 1886, by the “nabis” and Paul Cézanne. The revolution had immense impact, not the least of which on architecture. The boulevard style of Napoleon III and Baron GeorgesEugène Haussmann (died in 1891) and buildings like Charles Garnier’s opera
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PA R IS, A ROU N D 1900
house, the Palais Garnier, which opened in 1875, which was the most splendid monument of its time to the bourgeoisie of self-promoters. This was intended to be a synthesis “of the splendour of Venice and Byzan tium and the classical rigour of Rome and Florence”. Otherwise the buildings of the 1890s, particularly in the “genteel” quarters of the city, showed a historical fusion with rampant oriental touches and pompous blends of European styles such as the Gothic, a style which was still being criti cized as “tasteless and lacking in style” with a lack of appreciation lasting into the 1950s. Art Nouveau (Britain’s “Modern Style”, Belgium’s “Style Nouille”, Germany’s “Jugendstil” and the USA’s “Tiffany Style”) competed. Art history has long since corrected these fatal dismissals of the epoch. Something which should not be overlooked in the years around 1896 and the society borne up by prosperity, industrialization, colonial riches and general progress is sport. The upper social strata followed this as appropriate entertainment.
Students, however, increasingly found it “chic” and “patriotic”, a counter to the stifling decadence of their fathers’ day, the pessimism of the fin-de-siècle generation of 1890. The influence of the contemporary philosophy of Henri Bergson or Maurice Blondel, who rated “élan vital” and “action” above intel ligence cannot be overestimated. Cycling (the Tour de France started in 1903), racing (1864) and the French art of flying all flourished. For contemporaries, this was “not just a sport, but a pride, a liberation, attainment of an ideal,” Jacques Chastenet wrote in 1949, “what Bergsonism was for the intellectual élite, aviation was for the whole nation”. The only problem was that the propaganda of the nationalistic press used these trends to transform this idealism into enthusiasm for the First World War. “War in their eyes is a particular opportunity,” Agathon wrote,” to demonstrate the noblest human virtues, those which they rate the highest, energy, self-control, willingness to sacrifice.”
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Next page: KS PIOTR BECZAŁA as RODOLFO
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GIACOMO PUCCINI ON HENRI MURGER’S NOVEL S CÈ N E S DE L A V I E DE B OH È M E , W H IC H WA S THE BASIS OF HIS OPERA LA BOHÈME
I FOUND EVERY THING HERE THAT I SEEK AND LOVE – THE ORIGINALITY, THE YOUTH, THE PASSION, THE HUMOUR, THE SECRET TEARS AND THE LOVE THAT BRINGS JOY AND SUFFERING.
OLIVER LÁNG
THE CREATION OF LA BOHÈME “One rainy afternoon when I had no thing to do, I picked up a book I didn’t know. Henri Murger’s Scènes de la vie de bohème (Scenes of bohemian life) hit me like a thunderbolt. The atmosphere of the artists the stories presented, young, penniless and yet so cheerful and care free, immediately evoked memories of my youth, I felt quite at home. I needed scenes and emotions that speak to the heart to awaken the song in me! I found everything here that I seek and love – the originality, the youth, the passion, the humour, the secret tears and the love that brings joy and suffering.” This is how Arnaldo Fraccaroli, Puccini’s fellow musician, confidant and early biographer, has the composer look back on the creation of the work. Truth or legend? Although such retrospective reports often tend towards legend creation, this story is entirely credible as a whole. Puccini’s student years in Milan had a bohemian atmosphere, and in a romanticized version he recognized many of the elements of his youth. This personal enthusiasm was joined by a general liking. The literary basis for the libretto, Henri Murger’s Scènes de la vie de bohème, had been very popular for years by that time. Both the stories and their later dramatized version were appreciated by the public and were in every mouth.
But another story was occupying Puccini at the time. In the search for a promising subject he had come across not only Scènes but also La Lupa – the shewolf. The literary original was by the creator of the Cavalleria rusticana plot, the Sicilian poet Giovanna Verga, who Puccini even visited at home to discuss details of the intended stage version. How serious the young composer actually was at first about the story of murder and attempted murder is shown (among other things) by the fact that he studied the local folk music in the setting of the story – Sicily – to incorporate it into his opera. He hoped in this way to achieve maximum musical authenticity – a way of working which Puccini is known to have subsequently adopted repeatedly. However, after the first sketches, work was abandoned. Reportedly, Richard Wagner’s stepdaughter, Blondine Gravine, prompted the decision by pointing out to Puccini the “revolting” elements in the story. Whether this is true or not, in a letter of 13 July, 1894 Puccini told his publisher Giulio Ricordi about the end of the Lupa project. “The reasons are the heavy use of dialogue in the extremely jerky libretto, the unpleasant characters – without a single radiant, likeable figure!” This left the way clear for La bohème. Two librettists – Giuseppe Giacosa and
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THE CREATION OF LA BOHÈME
Luigi Illica – were soon brought in, but the cooperation was difficult. Puccini was notoriously acerbic in his treatment of librettists, outbursts and rants were a regular occurrence; Illica allegedly challenged the composer to a duel after one such outbreak. It was up to Ricordi to referee the dispute and intervene diplomatically. “Oh, this libretto! I’ve already revised it three times from start to finish, rewritten some parts four or five times!” Giacosa complained to Ricordi. The cause of the dispute was not just the composer’s ongoing demands for changes, but above all that Puccini had thought about the exact course of the action and details of the libretto, and so felt that he had to impose demands on the librettists. In turn, they tried to maintain a tolerable degree of independence; quite apart from the fact that they understandably objected to Puccini’s constant offensive comments, which were a regular feature. Another problem was that the composer had ideas about the music for many things before they had been developed in the libretto at all. This meant that the text – and this is unusual – had to be adapted to the musical concept, and not the other way around. Puccini and his librettists took over the scenic approach in Murger’s stories, and after long debate came up with a four-part structure (a planned fifth part, planned for the courtyard in the Rue Labruyère, was rejected), both lively and tragic. As Murger’s original was unsuitable for direct setting because of its fragmented form and the very large number of characters, the plot focused on Mimì’s love story and death. This is divided between at least two characters in the original, and set differently in many aspects. Murger’s Mimì is much
more coquettish, a grisette, the quiet death including the desire for a muff comes from another episode, the story of the consumptive Francine. So things were condensed and simplified, the characters were modified. What was left – and this is the particular contribution of the librettists – is the preservation of the atmosphere and overall nature of the original. The first version of the La bohème libretto was completed, Puccini finished working on the setting at the end of 1895. We know about his work among his noisy and drinking friends, and also a boozy celebration by the Bohème Club that Puccini founded. All in all, the path to completion was by no means simple for Puccini. In retrospect, he talked of a Herculean task, and there were also all his subsequent changes to the composition. Arturo Toscanini, just 29, conducted the world première of the opera at the Teatro Regio in Turin. Puccini was delighted. “Toscanini’s interpretations are truly miraculous, and his incomparable memory is a revelation. Toscanini is close to God when he conducts…” The staging of the world première was under Puccini’s supervision, and he continued to show great interest in the designs for his operas. Even so, the success after this first performance on 1 February 1896 was by no means absolute, and while the public gradually warmed to the work, Italian music critics were reserved in part. It was not until a series of performances in the Teatro Massimo in Palermo that La bohème achieved the desired success, advancing from the status of masterpiece to acknowledged masterpiece. A recognized masterpiece that quickly appeared on the world’s stages.
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LETTER
PUCCINI TO THE DIRECTOR OF THE CORRIERE DELLA SERA Milan, 21 March, 1893 Dear Director, I should be most grateful if you could find space in your esteemed newspaper for this short letter. The statement by maestro Leoncavallo in yesterday’s Secolo must have made my honesty clear to the public; for if maestro Leoncavallo, who I have long regarded as a friend had told me earlier what he informed me of the evening before last, I would certainly not have thought of Murger’s vie bohème. Now, I am – for reasons that are easy to understand – no longer in a position to do this friend and musician a favour which I should have been happy to do. But why is maestro Leoncavallo concerned? He will write music, I will write music. The public will judge for itself. Precedence in art does not mean that you have to interpret the same subject with the same artistic intentions. I am only concerned to tell you that I had been working seriously on my project for around two months, in other words since the first performances of Manon Lescaut in Turin, without making any secret of this. Giacomo Puccini
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KS MIRELLA FRENI as MIMÌ KS PLÁCIDO DOMINGO as RODOLFO
ANDREAS LÁNG
PUCCINI’S THEATRICAL INSTINCT SOME ASPECTS OF THE MUSIC OF LA BOHÈME The quality of Puccini’s music generally and La bohème in particular was a subject of controversy among experts at the start of the 20th century. As we know, the reviews of the world premières – at least of La bohème – were almost entirely unfavourable, and even his fellow composers were divided into prominent supporters and critics of Puccini’s compositional style. Gustav Mahler was one of the sharpest critics. He left a performance of La bohème at the Theater an der Wien with mocking laughter, and he was irritated in the later Tosca by the constant “racket” of the bells in Acts I and III. Even so, he opened the Vienna Court Opera to Puccini’s works with the première of La bohème in 1903. It clearly depended on which hat Mahler was wearing – the composer, who tore his colleague’s music to shreds, or the opera director, who needed La bohème’s success with the public for his house. But the experts changed their minds soon enough, and Puccini was officially accorded the place in the composers’ Hall of Fame that a broad public had given him from the start. So what was the actual problem with La bohème. The criticisms were
not only very different, but they also even contradicted each other in part, depending on the taste, profession or nationality of the reviewer. The academically trained conservative columnists in Italy and beyond found the freedoms Puccini allowed himself for creative reasons and innovative approaches went decidedly too far. The series of fifths in Act III, for example, or the near-collage effect of layering and juxtaposing the most diverse musical forms in Act II were obvious targets. For the young Italian avant-garde, opera as a genre was a red rag to a bull, as they saw the only chance for renewal as purely instrumental music. This is why musicologist Fausto Torre franca regarded the opera composer Puccini as the poster boy of decadent Italian music. Italian nationalists felt that the influences of French Impressionism on Puccini’s style were too broad, while most French composers, led by Claude Debussy, felt his music – and specifically La bohème – was too Italianate. Some found the music too sentimental, too emotional, others found it too realistic, too veristic. “Banal and unintellectual” was one complaint, “too complex and artificial” another.
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PUCCINI’S THEATRICAL INSTINCT
But that’s all past. The waves have calmed, Puccini has long since been honoured and loved as the legitimate successor of Giuseppe Verdi, his name is mentioned in the same breath as all the other greats of his profession, and his most important works are indispensable as pillars of the international opera season. How much effort Puccini always put into an authentic musical atmosphere for the specific subject and situation is clear from the numerous sketches and preliminary studies. Puccini’s search for stories that fit his musical language was arduous, often lasting for years, as shown by the relatively short list of works. This has eight full-length operas, one short opera, three one-acters and a handful of pieces outside the stage. He was deeply opposed to setting existing and finished opera libretti, as he wanted to develop the text together with the poets – formally and dramaturgically. In the case of La bohème, for example, he had just had Act III completely revised by his two librettists, Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, three times, only to finally propose even more improvements. One demonstration of Pucci ni’s theatrical instinct is his (successful) request to move the act at the Barrière d’Enfer, originally planned as Act II, back, replacing it with the livelier and more cheerful act at the Café Momus, newly written for the purpose. Puccini had realized that following the romantic ending of Act I with the Barrière d’Enfer would inevitably flatten the tension, and would be much more effective after a lively entr’acte. His sense for theatre is also evident in his effort to avoid scenes which were too expansive and plots which were too complicated. For him, the shorter the story and the sooner it could be brought to a head, the better the result would be. He accordingly repeatedly called on his two collaborators on La
bohème to reduce and cut. In one of his letters, he wrote “… quello che bisogna ridurre e molto è il 2° atto” (a whole lot needs to be cut in Act II). Puccini, Giacosa and Illica worked on the libretto for two years in all, a joint, intensive labour marked by numerous spirited disagreements due to differing artistic opinions. The process of composition was partly done in parallel, leading very rarely to the para doxical situation that the music for many passages was ready before the associated text. Puccini wrote the popular Musetta’s waltz in Act II on the basis of a few roughly outlined words, which were only replaced afterwards by the text we have today. But he went even further. While still a music student at the Milan Conservatory, Puccini wrote a Capriccio sinfonico, whose allegro vivace main theme he adopted virtually unchanged in La bohème as a form of leitmotif, even opening the opera with it. Many authors have claimed that Rodolfo’s “Nei cieli bigi” in Act I comes from the unfinished draft for La Lupa, which Puccini abandoned in favour of La bohème. In this context Mosco Carner notes that “When Puccini takes over material from another work, he ignores the original verbal meaning attached to the musical phrase, and uses it simply because it fits the state of mind of a given person or situation.” This comment emphasizes one of the strengths of the La bohème score, and Puccini’s music generally. He uses musical atmospheric calling cards – for characters, moments even whole scenes. The Rodolfo motif mentioned earlier shows the young, romantic lover overflowing with emotions. Whether he is singing the same melody to the radiant skies of Sicily, as originally in La Lupa, or the smoking chimneys of Paris, as finally in La bohème, doesn’t change the appropriate
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PUCCINI’S THEATRICAL INSTINCT
musical characterization of the basic mood of the individual. The collage nature of the musical and staging, layering and juxtaposition in the Café Momus Act II, in which march rhythms, choruses, waltzes are all heard, ideally captures the lively street and coffee house ambience through its (initially criticized) formal structure. With the pedal point and sequence of fifths above it at the start of Act III, Puccini immediately evokes the wintry mood of the action in the audience. But even minimal details, such as the fire in the stove (Act I), are musically portrayed in a way that sets the mood. Even though every scene and act clearly have their own immediately understandable characteristic, the individual acts are
linked together in a whole through recurring motifs and musical structures. Aside from all components, whether form, structure, dramaturgy or dynamic, tempo, rhythm – for which Puccini has given some very exact directions to interpreters – the most important element (besides melodic richness and its use) is the aspect of tone quality. The instrumentation and extremely differentiated tone colour are never an end in themselves as a mere tonal effect, but always reflect the atmosphere to be conveyed, and – as German musicologist Walter Maisch wrote just a few years after the composer’s death – “always serve as a unifying factor for the diversity of harmony, melody and rhythm”.
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KS ANNA NETREBKO as MIMÌ
ERICH MARIA REMARQUE / THREE COMRADES
SHE DIED IN THE LAST HOUR OF THE NIGHT, BEFORE MORNING. SHE DIED HARD AND IN PAIN, AND NO ONE COULD HELP HER. SHE HELD MY HAND TIGHT, BUT SHE DIDN’T KNOW I WAS WITH HER. AT SOME POINT, SOMEONE SAID, “SHE’S DEAD…” “NO,” I REPLIED, “SHE’S NOT DEAD YET.
SHE’S STILL GRIPPING MY HAND.” LIGHT. INTOLERABLE, HARSH LIGHT. PEOPLE. THE DOCTOR. I SLOWLY OPENED MY HAND. PAT’S HAND FELL. BLOOD. A DISTORTED, SUFFOCATED FACE. TORMENTED, FIXED EYES. BROWN, SILKY HAIR. “PAT,” I SAID. “PAT!” AND FOR THE FIRST TIME SHE DIDN’T ANSWER ME.
OLIVER LÁNG
PUCCINI AND LA BOHÈME THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE COMPOSER’S LIFE Some live out their obsessions and painful situations in complex, disturbing stage characters, creating astonishing alter egos who act out their personal suffering in parallel. Others channel their social opinions on the opera stage, creating a forum for personal and political statements. Others again use their personal biography as a quarry for moods, a shared place of remembrance, as atmospheric timbre – and Giacomo Puccini was a case in point. One thing is very certain – La bohème is also autobiographical, perhaps not in details, but (far more effective) in a general overview. In fact, the scenes in the opera can partly come from Puccini’s own life, and not only the scenes but also individual characters and situations. Based on a lifestyle and society that Puccini had created a musical monument to. His opera repeated in music the success that Henri Murger had had in the literary original. Establishing an image which had previously been familiar, but was still amorphous and ambiguous. The world of the bohemians, students, and impoverished artists, had
naturally existed before its literary and musical anchoring, but now it is exactly defined, its colouring and moods gene rally recognized. But how specifically is Puccini’s own life as a student reflected in the opera? How much of his youth has he transformed in it? There is something of both at work. The elements of need and hunger are given a bittersweet finish in the opera, bathed in a golden light. Puccini, who lived in poverty as a student in Milan, did not look back gladly on those penniless and hungry times. He was not proud of having been poor in his youth, and in fact the converse was true – poverty drove his pride. Something which certainly remained from those days was another aspect of bohemian life, the camaraderie, partnership, socializing on a modest scale, the youthful, hopeful vigour. So let’s follow the trail. In 1880 the young Giacomo Puccini left the provinces for Milan to study at the renowned conservatory. One of his teachers was the equally renowned Amilcare Ponchielli, composer of La Gioconda, and one of his colleagues was Pietro Mascagni.
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As the Puccini family’s financial situation was not sufficient to fund these studies (the father had died years before), they were only made possible by a scholarship grant from Queen Margherita and support from a prosperous and well-disposed relative, Nicola Cerù. So he was scraping by. Even so, the young Puccini was caught up in the life in Milan. In a letter to his mother, his contact at home, he wrote, “How rich Milan is!” But he also occasionally wrote “Maledetta la miseria!” (wretched poverty). He devoted himself to his studies with more or less discipline and energy, describing his day to his mother. “I get up around 8.30 in the morning, and if I have a class I go out. If not, I practise piano for a bit. Not too much, but I do need to practise. Then I stop for breakfast at 10.30, and then I go out. I come back home around one in the afternoon, and work for Bazzini (a teacher) for a couple of hours, then between 3-5 I get back to the piano and look through the classical music literature for a bit. Around 5 p.m. I go for a simple meal (modest but ample) and eat a minestrone alla milanese, which to be truthful is really good. I eat three bowls of this, then a piece of gorgonzola, with a half-litre of wine. Then I light a cigar, go to the Galleria and walk around for a while, as I usually do. I stay there until 9 p.m. and get home dead tired.” In addition, there were the visits to a tavern which gave extensive credit to aspiring artists, and visits to the opera, which in part were only possible with additional financial support from his mother. There was also the modest request for a little olive oil from home, as he wanted to cook beans, which in Milan were prepared
with flaxseed or sesame oil. The lifestyle he describes in his letters to his mother is harmonious, although still marked by penury. “In the evening, if I have money I go to the café, but there are many evenings when I don’t go, because a glass of punch there costs 40 centesimi. I’m not starving, I don’t eat well, but I fill up with minestrone, a thin soup. My belly’s happy,” he wrote in another letter. It’s not possible to say how far he exaggerated his contentment, but we should certainly consider the possibility that Giacomo Puccini didn’t want to burden his mother with his own needs, and so made a lot of things sound rather better than they actually were. There were many situations reminiscent of bohemia, which are related in anecdotes. When Puccini shared a room with Pietro Mascagni in his Milan student days, creditors were reportedly fooled by the following simple but effective technique. If one of Mascagni’s creditors knocked on the door, Mascagni would hide in a wardrobe, Puccini would open the door and claim that his fellow lodger was away. If one of Puccini’s creditors knocked, they exchanged roles. Another anecdote from musical history: to cook in the room (which was prohibited), Puccini would make “noise” on the piano to drown out the noises of fellow tenants cooking, which the unsuspecting music-loving landlady thoroughly enjoyed. A change of scene, and a change of location. Years later, Puccini is a renowned and wealthy composer, his operas are performed in all the great opera houses in the world from Buenos Aires to St Petersburg, but he prefers the authenticity of his home to grand inter-
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national society, sophistication, and crowds of admirers. In the somewhat remote village of Torre del Lago, directly by his birthplace Lucca, he finds the happiness, nature and atmosphere he needs to work. Between fast cars, boats, hunting, and lake Massaciuccoli, he lives apart from smart society. Naturally, he enjoys luxury, but what does he need? Friends, as heartfelt as in Milan, direct and normal. And he finds these in Torre de Lago, where he meets fellow artists in a small, converted inn to found the Bohème Club. We still have the rules, designed to banish seriousness. 1. The members of the Bohème Club, in the spirit in which it was founded, pledge to relax and eat better. 2. Poker faces, pedants, weak stomachs, fools, puritans, and other wretches of this kind are not admitted and will be thrown out. 3. The president acts as mediator but stops the treasurer collecting membership fees. 4. The treasurer is authorized to make off with the money in secret.
5. The inn must be lit by an oil lamp. If the fuel runs out, the members’ blockheads will be used. 6. All games permitted by law are forbidden. 7. Silence is forbidden. 8. Wisdom is only allowed in exceptional instances. But there were parties at Puccini’s home as well, sometimes without Puccini’s participation, as he sat at the piano, working through the noise. His imagination was particularly stimulated by the dense clouds of tobacco smoke, the noise of a card party, and heated political discussions, and while people were partying around him he created the music that would move the opera world so tenderly and deeply. It was his own, newly created and intensely personal bohemia, which offered him as an ultimately deeply quiet and even shy person, a refuge and home. A bohemia which let him be an entirely democratic king, forget worldly ties, and – one more thing, above all – the reminiscence of youthful hope, free from oppressive need and poverty.
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IG OR S T R AV I N S K Y
PUCCINI’S GENIUS FOR SENTIMENTALITY IS SO PERFECTLY SUITED TO THE DRAMATIC MATERIAL IN LA BOHÈME THAT EVEN I, IF I MANAGE TO GET A TICKET, LEAVE THE THEATRE WITH THE SONG OF MY LOST INNO CENCE ON MY LIPS.
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THOMAS CHORHERR
THE ROMANCE OF POVERTY The suit, wrinkled and with a tear in the sleeve came from a costume rental store. The same went for the battered hat. I was made up by a TV makeup artist. Made up? Under her hands I aged, looked unshaved – three-day stubble. Three-day stubble? I was supposed to look like – no, not a homeless person. Like a beggar. That was – how many years ago now? A lot. I was a local reporter and wanted to learn about life. Real life, as you could see it then in the city at every corner. Life as a young journalist has to learn about it. I wanted to be a beggar. To learn what it’s like to sit on the pavement, head down, hand out. I wanted to do what Günter Wallraff, the famous and notorious German undercover reporter had done: without being recognized, do something which is controversial, or dangerous, or even just interesting. To be a beggar in Vienna seemed to me – well, let’s say interesting. To fake poverty seemed worth an article. So I sat in front of a church on Mariahilfer Strasse, and then in front of a department store, and waited for charity. And lo and behold, it paid off. I only collected coins, and if you were to ask me how much I got in “alms”, I couldn’t Previous pages: SCENE
tell you now. But it wasn’t to be sneezed at. The TV camera people who were secretly recording my begging adventure, and the police officer I’d told what I was doing as a precaution – they were all surprised. I was surprised too. Does Vienna really have a heart of gold? Weeks later, we learned that even foreign newspapers had reported on the adventure of a young Viennese journalist. A Spanish magazine even complained it was unacceptable to object to begging in their country when in Vienna even journalists had to beg, and on the street at that. I don’t know if the periodical was being serious or not. I only know that I wanted – as I said earlier – to explore a dark side of life. I wanted to pretend to be poor. I was being bold for the sake of the intended article. I wanted to have an adventure. The pretended poverty really was an experience for me. It never occurred to me that I was almost reducing real, genuine poverty to a joke. For me, it was – to a certain degree – romantic to sit in front of a church and beg. Even poverty can sometimes have something romantic about it. Since then, I’ve wondered many times about the romance of poverty, thought about it, asked myself why so
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many poets don’t describe it in purely negative terms, as a misfortune. Why so many writers and poets see poverty as not just a misfortune, a blow of fate, which you can’t escape from by your own efforts. Rodolfo and Marcel, Schaunard and Colline are characters that Henri Murger must have taken from Parisian life. Vie de bohème: Murger, whose scenes Giacomo Puccini set to his music, knew nothing then of the “bobos” who roam the major European cities today. Bobos – the “bourgeois bohemians”. The modern youth, the new élite, as David Brooks described them in his book, which was a sociological study of the bobos. He described them as a new subculture, living idealistically, but nevertheless prosperous, nonconformist, gentrifying many city districts which had come down in the world. Bobos: bohemians occasionally pretending a poverty which they aren’t part of, because mental poverty doesn’t count. This is conscious romance, not the real romance of poverty. Not the carefree poverty that Karl Heinrich Waggerl describes. He certainly knew what it meant to be starving. “Poverty can make any slight misstep into an unavoidable disaster. When I was three or four, we had to leave our home and go on the road. My sister stayed with relatives and made a living. But I was no use to any body. I was just a constantly growing burden. No longer nursing, needing food, and completely useless.” Constantly growing nuisance? And yet Waggerl didn’t find this poverty a burden. He never lost his cheerfulness. Like the Austrian poet and author Peter Rosegger, the woodland lad, who was never down in the dumps – quite
the opposite. With the other children in the village, he would wait by the side of the road when groups of pilgrims passed through on their way to Mariazell. “We dressed in our most threadbare clothes, and with rags fluttering we hopped to the road. Then we knelt on the sand so we could sit back on our heels, and when one of the groups came by we pulled our caps off, put them in front of us like bowls and recited the Lord’s Prayer endlessly, first hesitantly and then boldly. Not in vain. Men threw coins, women threw bread and cakes to us, which they’d taken from their own mouths, as you could see from the tooth marks.” I was surprised by what I read. Rosegger had done what I’d thought of doing centuries later, getting disguised to go begging. Begging for fun. For fun? I remember the summer of 1945. The lads were standing with friends in front of an inn the Americans had taken over, with cooking pots in our hands, waiting for the GIs who would throw leftovers into our pots. The romance of poverty? We didn’t think of it as begging back then. And certainly not as romantic. We were hungry. Were we poor? Back then, certainly, at any rate according to the indicators of the International Development Association. They classify absolute poverty today by per capita income. Anyone earning less than USD 150 is poor. But wait – is what the IDA classifies as enough food accurate? Absolute poverty is consuming less than 2,160 to 2,670 calories a day. Which is ridiculous. Our daily calorie intake calculated on the basis of food rationing was barely 2,000 until the late 1940s. We were in secondary education then, did we think that was
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“absolute poverty”? If so, that was romantic. The girls we eyed at the dance school were just as poor as we were. That’s why I think there’s a significant contrast between romance and poverty. Yes, there is a “culture of poverty”. Certainly, in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs physiological needs appear as the base, followed by safety and social relationships. At the peak are esteem and finally self-actualization. In other words, Bert Brecht was right when he said “Food comes first, then ethics.” And yet Rilke described poverty as “the great light from within”. And the Franciscan Jacopone da Todi wrote: “(...) Noble poverty, sublime knowledge, Free from material bondage, Disdaining everything Created and bound by time. (…) To have desires is to be in bondage to possessions, To be in thrall to the things desired; Anyone who thinks they own these Has it the wrong way round. God does not enter the heart Caught up with earthly things; Poverty offers so much space That the Deity can dwell there.” Bobos and romance? Romantic bohemians? Four friends living in a Paris attic burn a manuscript to keep from freezing, but are still cheerful – until Mimì’s fate affects them all. The Bieder meier painters knew how to depict even poverty so that it aroused more admiration than pity. But the tenements? The bedsitter as a place to converse, the lavatory in the corridor? The “bed tenants”, people who use the same bed in shifts, one during the day, the other at night? The squa-
lid one-room huts in the countryside, which allegedly (only allegedly) are big enough for a couple if the couple is happy? This is definitely poverty without romance. And Poverty is also the title of one of the best-known plays of Anton Wildgans. A desperately poor family doesn’t know where to find the money to ease the suffering of the sick father. The daughter was even ready to give herself to a rich subtenant. It doesn’t come to that. The father dies. Curtain! Wildgans showed poverty as he saw it, devoid of all romance. Other poets saw it differently. Ferdinand Raimund has a poor person appear in every one of his pieces, although they become rich at the end. The song of the Köhler family (the father is admittedly an alcoholic) who have to leave their hut at the order of the rich Rappelkopf is pure romance. “So farewell, you silent house, we’re sorry to leave you.” At the end they are naturally not homeless, because the Alpine King has healed the villain psychologically – a clinical case of recovery from schizophrenia. In Der Verschwender (The Wastrel) a beggar sings while the guests of the Flottwell’s master feast, laughing. “Don’t let me ask in vain, don’t be too proud of your wealth! Like you, I once lived a wealthy life, that’s why I’m being punished by grief.” The beggar is naturally an allegory, the wastrel Flottwell gets his wealth back, and the carpenter Valentin and his numerous family sing at the end: “The herds women drive the cows down from the mountain meadow, modest requirements still deliver the best reward. The rich lie sleepless in their gilded halls, but the cow sleeps untroubled in the stall.” The romance of poverty? For the
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Biedermeier poets, the rich really do lie sleepless. The villains who plunder other people’s property, including ideas, are punished in the age of romantic frugality, in works by Raimund, Nestroy and Wilhelm Kienzl’s Der Evan gelimann. We can take it as given that modern statistics have dispelled the romance of those days. Some 1.5 million Austrians have an income of less than
1,300 euros, the poverty line. Even the journalist has difficulty finding any trace of romance here. After the improvised begging session, he took off his beggar’s clothes. But in just about every case, there’s no happy end. Murger’s and Puccini’s bohemians end by weeping. Bobos don’t do that.
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ANDREAS LÁNG
LA BOHÈME AT THE WIENER STAATSOPER In Vienna, the city that Puccini once claimed was an alternative home to Torre del Lago or Viareggio, La bohème found an appreciative public just as quickly as in Italy. Perhaps not the right theatre, as the Vienna Court Opera fought against admitting Puccini’s pieces. Instead, the Theater an der Wien got to be the first house in Vienna to present La bohème just a year after the world première. However, its success forced Gustav Mahler to introduce La bohème at the Court Opera, much against his will. This finally happened on 25 Novem ber, 1903. Under the musical direction of the Court Opera’s specialist at the time for Italian works, Francesco Petrino, and the designs of Anton Brioschi, La bohème was Puccini’s first opera to conquer the Wiener Staatsoper, never to leave. Prominent singers of the turn of the century such as Selma Kurz (Mimì), Marie GutheilSchoder (Musetta), Fritz Schrödter (Rodolfo), Gerhard Stehmann (Marcello) and Richard Mayr (Colline) were available for the successful début.
For Puccini, this was a dream come true, particularly since he was invited to the Court Opera for the première. However, although he was delighted by the invitation, he declined, as it came in the middle of his work on Madama Butterfly, which was unusual as Puccini always tried to be present for important performances of his works. The production of the first La bohème at the Wiener Staatsoper – or rather the staging, since production never went beyond this at the start of the 20th century – was by August Stoll, who is practically unknown today. Even so, he was familiar with Paris, the setting of the action, by virtue of a recent visit, which made it easy for him and Brioschi to give the desired naturalistic touch to the presentation of the story. The influence of art nouveau was evident in the visuals, particularly in the vegetation. There was no direction of the characters in the modern sense, front and centre singing dominated. Generally, the reviewers praised the magic and atmosphere of the staging, but found it
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too gloomy at times, and the costumes too dark. A new style of direction emerged in the house from 1911 under Hans Gregor, including the staging. Gregor was a proponent of movement direction. The emphasis was on acting, which brought accusations of a lack of musicality, including and particularly with Puccini productions. In his new production of La bohème on 4 October 1912, he was criticized for the constant movement and turmoil on the stage, the crowds of extras, and the constantly changing lighting, which pushed the musical aspect too far into the background. Gregor felt so compelled by realism that he had live donkeys and horses on the stage, as well as an actual fire in Act I. Antonio Guarnieri conducted, and Selma Kurz again sang Mimì, with Alfred Piccaver as Rodolfo and Berta Kiurina as Musetta. The next new La bohème production was in 1938, the last Puccini production before the Second World War. Together with Robert Kautsky, the Hungarian director Kolomán von Nádasdy created a romanticized, rather over-elaborate version of the opera, which took back Gregor’s movement direction, now acknowledged. The conductor for this première was Wilhelm Loibner, the singers in the main roles were Esther Réthy (Mimì), Todor Mazaroff (Rodolfo), Alexander Svéd (Marcello), Else Schulz (Musetta), Herbert Alsen (Colline). After the Second World War, the production moved from the destroyed Staatsoper to the Volksoper building or the Theater an der Wien, to be replaced in 1952 at the Theater an der Wien by a production by Josef Gielen, with an
impressionistic touch. Clemens Krauss conducted the première production, the singers were Sena Jurinac (Mimì), Wilma Lipp (Musetta), Karl Terkal (Rodolfo), Walter Berry (Schaunard). After the opening of the restored Wiener Staatsoper, this production was then taken over there. What is probably the best production of La bohème to date and also the latest, played as before (taken over from La Scala in Milan) premièred on 9 November 1963, with one of the greatest opera scandals in the Second Republic. It centred on the individual acting as the prompter. The Italian singers were used to seeing a maestro sug geritore in the prompter’s box, a mix of prompter and assistant conductor, and had demanded theirs for the appearances at Wiener Staatsoper. The director at the time and also musical director of the new production was Herbert von Karajan, who approved the engagement of a maestro suggeritore, but the works council did not. As the two sides increasingly hardened their position, the scandal broke on 7 November 1963. The audi ence arriving for the première had to be sent home again, the première of La bohème was postponed by two days. This did not prevent continuing applause for the performance of Herbert von Karajan (conductor), Franco Zeffirelli (director and set designer), Gianni Raimondi (Rodolfo), Mirella Freni (Mimì), Giuseppe Taddei (Schaunard), Rolando Panerai (Marcello) and Hilde Güden (Musetta) – there were around 460 performances of this production until 2023.
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Previous pages: KS KRASSIMIRA STOYANOVA as MIMÌ STEPHEN COSTELLO as RODOLFO
IMPRINT GIACOMO PUCCINI
LA BOHÈME SEASON 2023/24 PREMIÈRE OF THE PRODUCTION 3 NOVEMBER 1963 Publisher WIENER STAATSOPER GMBH, Opernring 2, 1010 Wien Director DR. BOGDAN ROŠČIĆ Music Director PHILIPPE JORDAN Administrative Director DR. PETRA BOHUSLAV General Editors SERGIO MORABITO, ANDREAS LÁNG, OLIVER LÁNG Design & concept EXEX Layout & typesetting MIWA MEUSBURGER Cover concept MARTIN CONRADS, BERLIN Printed by PRINT ALLIANCE HAV PRODUKTIONS GMBH, BAD VÖSLAU TEXT REFERENCES All texts were taken from the La bohème programme of the Vienna State Opera (2010). All texts – except those by Murger and Puccini – were original contributions to the programme of the Vienna State Opera. IMAGE REFERENCE Cover: Performance Of Highliner Nathan Paulin On A Slackline At The Eiffel Tower In Paris (Photo by Samuel Boivin/NurPhoto via Getty Images) SCENES Michael Pöhn / Wiener Staatsoper GmbH (Pages: 2-3, 7, 12, 28-29, 36-37) Axel Zeininger / Wiener Staatsoper GmbH (Page: 17) Barbara Zeininger / Wiener Staatsoper GmbH (Page: 21) ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS Andrew Smith. Reproduction only with approval of Wiener Staatsoper GmbH / Dramaturgy. Abbreviations are not marked. Holders of rights who were unavailable regarding retrospect compensation are requested to make contact.
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