Recording Format: Studio , Analog (Tape) Performed by:
* Albanese, Licia (Role: Soprano, Mimì)
* Baccaloni, Salvatore (Role: Bass, Benoit/Alcindoro)
* Cehanowsky, George (Role: Baritono, Schaunard)
* Giacosa, Giuseppe (Role: Booklet Author)
* Illica, Luigi (Role: Booklet Author)
* Mc Knight, Anne (Role: Mezzo-Soprano, Musetta)
* Moscona, Nicola (Role: Bass, Colline)
* NBC Chorus, New York (Role: Choir)
* NBC Symphony Orchestra, New York (Role: Orchestra)
* Peerce, Jan (Role: Tenor, Rodolfo)
* Puccini, Giacomo (Role: Composer)
* Toscanini, Arturo (Role: Conductor)
* Valentino, Francesco (Role: Baritono, Marcello) Year: 1951 Opera Information: Act I: The painter, Marcello, and the writer, Rodolfo, share a Parisian garret studio. It is Christmas Eve and both young men are poor and cold. Soon they are joined by two more Bohemian acquaintances - the philosopher, Colline, and the musician, Schaunard. The latter has recently earned a little money and so the friends decide to go off and celebrate in the Latin Quarter, first, skillfully avoiding paying rent to the landlord, Benoit. Rodolfo says he has to stay behind, briefly, to complete an article. Soon he is interrupted by Mimi, a young seamstress, asking for a light for her candle. Mimi is ill yet Rodolfo is immediately charmed by her. His friends call out for him to hurry. He and Mimi declare their love and set out for the Café Momus.
Act II: With the four friends and Mimi reunited in a bustling thoroughfare imbued by festive atmosphere, the spell is broken when Marcello sees his old flame, Musetta, walk by on the arm of a rich, old diplomat, Alcindoro. She soon dispatches Alcindoro to buy her a new pair of shoes and flirts again openly with Marcello. After much merriment, the bill for supper arrives and a returning Alcindoro finds he has to settle it as the Bohemians make their escape amongst the hubbub of an arriving military band.
Act III: Two months have passed and it is February. Mimi, afflicted by TB, is looking for Marcello to tell him how Rodolfo is tormenting her by his constant possessiveness. She retreats when Rodolfo appears to confide in Marcello his grave concerns over Mimi's illness. He and Mimi agree they must part, whilst Marcello and Musetta also seem to be in the throes of separation.
Act IV: In early spring, Marcello and Rodolfo are alone again, feigning indifference to their respective lost loves. Schaunard and Colline appear with some meagre provisions and the quartet again try to look on the bright side. The mood is shattered by Musetta who has come to announce that Mimi is outside dying. She is brought in and the Bohemians scrape some money together for a doctor. Left alone, Mimi and Rodolfo fondly remember their first meeting and Mimi gently drifts off - until Schaunard realizes her new-found rest will be permanent.
Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini (December 22, 1858 – November 29, 1924) was an Italian composer whose operas, including La Bohème, Tosca, and Madama Butterfly, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire.
Puccini's style has been one long avoided by musicologists; this avoidance can perhaps be attributed to the perception that his work, with its emphasis on melody and evident popular appeal, lacked "seriousness". Despite the place Puccini clearly occupies in the popular tradition of Verdi, his style of orchestration also shows the strong influence of Wagner, matching specific orchestral configurations and timbres to different dramatic moments. His operas contain an unparalleled manipulation of orchestral colors, with the orchestra often creating the scene’s atmosphere.
The structures of Puccini's works are also noteworthy. While it is to an extent possible to divide his operas into arias or numbers (like Verdi's), his scores generally present a very strong sense of continuous flow and connectivity, perhaps another sign of Wagner’s influence. Like Wagner, Puccini used leitmotifs to connote characters (or combinations of characters).
Another distinctive quality in Puccini's works is the use of the voice in the style of speech: characters sing short phrases one after another as if they were talking to each other. Puccini is celebrated, on the other hand, for his melodic gift, and many of his melodies are both memorable and enduringly popular.
Pulitzer Prize-winning music critic Lloyd Schwartz summarized Puccini thus: "Is it possible for a work of art to seem both completely sincere in its intentions and at the same time counterfeit and manipulative? Puccini built a major career on these contradictions. But people care about him, even admire him, because he did it both so shamelessly and so skillfully. How can you complain about a composer whose music is so relentlessly memorable, even — maybe especially — at its most saccharine?"
