It will be noticed that the gifted lady who was in the mind of the Carl Rosa authorities, for their initial production, as Mimi, was then seen in the particular part for which her temperament fitted her. By substituting Caruso as the Rodolfo—it is one of the very finest parts of this tenor—and Scotti as the Marcello, we have practically the same cast as that with which this opera at the present time fills Covent Garden; invariably one of its most brilliant audiences.
In June 1898 Paris saw La Bohème at the Opera Comique, for which performance the composer visited the French Capital, for the first time, to superintend some of the first rehearsals. It went to America in the December of the same year, when it was mounted at the Academy of Music, Philadelphia, and sung in Italian. Melba was the Mimi, De Lussan the Musetta, and Pandolfini the Rodolfo.
New York had seen it, in English, at the American Theatre, in the previous month. This production, in which the Rodolfo was J. F. Sheehan; the Mimi, Yvonne de Treville; and the Musetta, Villa Knox, was by Henry W. Savage's Castle Square Opera Company. It was given in French at New Orleans in the winter of 1900 by Barrich's Company. It was first given in Germany at the Ander Wren Theatre, Vienna, Frances Saville being the Mimi and Franz Naval the Rodolfo.
Coming to the story, which with the music is by this time so familiar to opera-goers, the composer, in characteristic fashion, plunges us at once, without scarcely as much as a few bars of prelude, into the midst of things. At the outset the atmosphere is established by the restless, vivacious, detached and spirited phrase which, if it hardly ever assumes the proportions, musically considered, of a leading theme, at least flavours very strongly the whole musical fabric. It may well be taken to represent the free unrestrained spirit of the Vie de Bohème. The curtain rises quickly, and we see an attic, inhabited by the quartet of gay spirits, those bold adventurers, as Murger calls them, who are stopped by nothing—rain or dust, cold or heat. Every day's existence is a work of genius, a daily problem. Now abstemious as anchorites, now riding forth on the most ruinous fancies, not finding enough windows whence to throw their money. Truly, as Murger puts it, a gay life yet a terrible one!
Rodolfo, the poet, gazes pensively out of the window, Marcello, the artist, is painting the passage of the Red Sea. It is Christmas Eve, and the cold is bitter: and to keep the stove alight, they burn up a MS.—a drama—of Rodolfo's.
All through this scene of colloquial and snappy dialogue, the music runs with remarkable movement. Soon Schaunard the musician comes in. He has been lucky enough not only to find a job but to get paid for it; and he tells us it was an Englishman who employed him. He has bought provisions with the spoil, and they spread the feast, in true Bohemian fashion, with a newspaper for table cloth. They begin the meal with light-hearted merriment, when the landlord comes in to collect his much overdue rent. That worthy is amazed to find his tenants can pay it, and after taking a glass with them, and chatting about his amours, the four irresponsibles get rid of him. They then decide on a visit to the café Momus in the Latin quarter, and leave Rodolfo behind for a space, as he has to finish an article for the Beaver. "Be quick, then," says Marcello, "and cut the Beaver's tale short."
As Rodolfo sits at the table to work, a timid knock is heard at the door, and Mimi, the pretty little seamstress who occupies a room near the roof, and who is already in the grip of the fell disease, consumption, comes in to ask for a light, her candle having been extinguished by the draught in the passage. She is evidently worn out by cough, cold and fatigue, and Rodolfo, after reviving her with a little wine, makes a remark as to her delicate beauty. Mimi, however, has not come to chatter or to be flattered, and with thanks, prettily expressed, she departs for her chamber. Fate, in the shape of a lost key, sends her back again, and the draught in the passage puts out not only Mimi's candle, but Rodolfo's as well. While they both search for the key, Mimi's cold little hand touches that of Rodolfo, and the latter clasps it; and he then tells her of his life and aims and prospects in the beautifully melodious number, Che gelida manina, which, like so many of Puccini's themes, seems to grow out of the reiteration of a single note, swelling out in a delightful emotional fulness. Mimi tells Rodolfo of her work, and how she embroiders flowers on rich stuffs, which make her think of the green fields and the sweet scents of the country side; how lonely she is all by herself in her little top attic; how she takes her frugal supper all alone. The two natures are quickly brought together, and Mimi is soon in Rodolfo's arms and has received his first passionate kiss. The three friends outside now call up to him, and he says he has three lines to finish, but that he will join them anon, and that he wants two places kept at the supper table. With a full confession of her love, Mimi takes Rodolfo's arm, and their last notes, "My love, my love," are heard as they descend the staircase.
At the café Momus—the exterior of which we see as the curtain rises on the second Act, preceded by a clever and vivacious phrase given to the trumpets in the orchestra—our four brave Bohemians were known as the Four Musketeers, since they were inseparable. "Indeed," says Murger, "they always went about together, played together, dined together, often without paying the bill, yet always with a beautiful harmony worthy of the conservatoire orchestra."
In this scene, which is full of life and movement—showing in the treatment of the chorus, formed of children, people, soldiers, students, work girls, and gendarmes, that beautifully polished technique in melodic construction which makes Puccini so strong and in every way a master musician—the lively Musetta comes on the scene. Once more may Murger's own words fittingly recall her to mind. "Mademoiselle Musetta was a pretty girl of twenty, very coquettish, rather ambitious, but without any pretensions to spelling. Oh, those delightful suppers ... a perpetual alternative between a blue brougham and an omnibus: between the Rue Breda and the Latin quarter."
Although the incidents represented appear to follow consecutively, it is a little strange to find a sort of al fresco entertainment in progress after the references to the bitter cold in the preceding Act. At any rate, whether the dramatist's license be allowed or not—and we may easily imagine a flight of time to have taken place since the happenings in the opening Act—the café Momus, in this second Act, is so full that our quartet of Bohemians, with Musetta and her elderly admirer, take their supper en plein air. There is little of incident, or progress of events, in this lively scene. Musetta is reconciled after singing her delicious song, in slow waltz form, to her Marcello, and the fatuous old Alcindoro is left to pay the bill of the whole party. Yet against this, the sense of movement and gaiety, shown by the ever-moving crowd, and the incident of the toy-seller Parpignol—just a plain slice of life put down on the stage in a truly modern method—is beautifully worked out in the music, and never for an instant does it flag in vivacity.