Henri Louis-Murger (1822-1861), a writer who, after leaving school at 15, supported himself with various menial jobs published his first novel Scènes de la vie de bohème in 1847. In 1849, the story became a play and was taken up into later incarnations as a zarzuela (Bohemios by Amadeu Vives), an operetta (Das Veilchen von Montmartre by Kálmán) and, most recently, the Broadway musical (Rent). Of course, the story also received two full operatic treatments by Leoncavallo (La bohème) and Puccini (La Bohème).

As background, Leoncavallo (1857-1919) wrote about twenty opera, only one of which, his first, I Pagliacci (1892), achieved a lasting life on the international stage.

Puccini (1858-1924), on the other hand, became an operatic legend – just think of La Bohème, Madama Butterfly, Tosca, Manon Lescaut and Turandot. (Birgit Nilsson once remarked that Tristan and Isolde made her famous, Turandot made her rich. A 26 year old Luciano Pavarotti made his debut as Rodolfo in April 1961 at the Teatro Municipale in Reggio Emilia and it was that role that was eventually to propel him to stardom.)

But I digress …

History shows us that Puccini's version not only eclipsed Leoncavallo's setting, but ranks among the most popular operas in the world based on performance numbers. At present, according to ArkivMusic.com there are some 90 recordings and 16 DVDs in the market!

Full disclosure:  I admit to having never heard Leoncavallo's version, and there is, no doubt, beautiful, inventive and inspiring music. This is an opera story that can surely benefit from the verismo style that Leoncavallo championed in his music.

The theme of the Leoncavallo's and Puccini's operas is similar – starving artists striving to celebrate life while making a living in an inhospitable and hostile world. As four artists – a painter, a musician, a poet and philosopher – they contemplate and express the world to enlighten it as they perceive it best. In the process, they discovered the true value of the expression A penny for your thoughts.

To read a synopsis of the Leoncavallo treatment, today, reads a little like a parody. A thoughtful hearing might be in order here.

By way of background, the story is based on Henri Murger's own life as a struggling and starving artist along with the company of his friends who called themselves the "Water Drinkers" since they couldn't afford wine. In an irony of fate, even with the popular novel and stage play, Murger never really got to enjoy the fruits and comforts of success and died in poverty at 39. Were he alive, what would he have thought that at his funeral he was honored with the attendance of some 250 luminaries of journalism, literature, theater and the arts. Would have have found comfort that Le Figaro launched a fund in his honor and that, within two months, hundreds of people contributed about 6,500 francs to raise a monument which today graces the Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris. He may have died in penury, but the celebration of irony richly lives on.
Back to La Bohème -- what impresses me about the dueling operatic versions is how they are framed in the context of time– Leoncavallo's goes from Christmas to Christmas, while Puccini's goes from Christmas to Shrove Thursday (Berlinghaccio – a Tuscan version of Mardi Gras). The framework, I believe, can lead to the telling of very different stories.

Christmas to Christmas completes a cycle which, in this case, would be one of arising in darkness (and and that is associated with that) and expiring in darkness -- a kind of Three Penny Götterdämmerung -- while Christmas to Shrove tells me that the earthly trials of love, hunger, and the search for meaning through hope and despair do not go unnoticed according to lessons from Heaven. As darkness and chaos eventually are blessed with light, so goes this story.

A brief reading of the Puccini's libretto (authored by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa) includes a host of references to biblical imagery if you choose to closely follow the imagery. (The music is so beautiful and seductive that that alone is a kind of trial.) The images can serve as a metaphor to underscore the subtler subject of the opera, which I believe is:  questions of life to which religion is the answer – Why am I here?; How am I to live?; and, What part, if any, does love play in this experience of life?

The spark of love that leaps between Rodolfo (name: noble wolf) and Lucia (name: source of light) begins with the lighting of a single candle on Christmas eve – among the darkest, and in their case, hungriest nights of the year when all celebrate in faith the rebirth of the sun and the promise of lighter and happier days.
The end of the opera, or rather the next phase of Rodolfo's and Lucia's love, abruptly interrupts the heady frolicking on Shrove Thursday, the night before the season of serious contemplation begins. As Lucia lays dying, we attend the scene with an understanding which the music plays on our heartstrings and which we recognize as a scene of love transcending death.

There is a reason why this opera is so beloved the world 'round. There is, of course, the opulent music, the vocal beauty, the humor and the spectacle. There is the story which tells of the love of Rodolfo and Mimi and the friendships they share with their life's cohorts. There is another story that the opera richly refers to -- our own. ***

(Arthur Freeman is one of the founders of Repertory Opera Company and he will be singing Benoit in our upcoming production of La Boheme.)