There is much to write about but until today no inclination to write about experience as I immersed in new additional experience although not necessarily original experience.
I have seen La Boheme before, on stage at Oxford and possibly on the small screen although no recollection and it may have been one of the operas I was taken to see as a schoolboy by my birth and care mothers and their eldest sister. I went to see Carmen definitely either as a schoolchild perhaps later because it was about Spain and gypsies and I knew that my care mother and maybe some of her other sisters had been on at least one trip to see gypsy women as well as Spanish ladies in traditional costume over the border probably at some Catholic festival. I am vague about their recollections before they came to England because their memories were not recorded and there was a long period when we did not talk about their life in Gibraltar. Harriet wanted to, but Mabel and Lena did not. I was a decade too late when I wanted to know Now all their brothers and sisters have also gone as have my older first cousins
It was a good day to watch La Boheme on the BBC i player, the coldest since last Winter, just above zero C for most of the 24 hours. La Boheme is perhaps the most watched opera along with Madam Butterfly and Carmen because of the almost continuous romantic lyricism to the extent that the audience can become overwhelmed by its combination of beautiful singing and profound emotional intensity. Most have heard the aria Che gilda manina What a cold little hand. La Boheme opened the Metropolitan Live relay season this year and I had arranged a weekend trip to see it but then Cineworld bottled out and although I could have gone locally if there were places I decided against and hesitated on discovering there was a recent production, possible the same as being shown on the live relay
La Boheme is intended to convey a place where Bohemians live and although written in Italian by the great Italian composer Puccini, the author of Madam Butterfly, Turandot and Tosca, it is traditionally set in an artistic quarter of Paris such as Montmartre of garrets and cafes, the land of Toulouse Lautrec and Berlioz. In this instance the hero is a poet Rodolfo who shares lodging with Marcello a painter, with friends Schainard, a musician and Colline. a philosopher. The heroine is Mimi, a seamstress, often portrayed as innocent and with Musetta, the singer, as worldly. The friends are cold and hungry until the musician arrives having secured work with an eccentric Englishman. They decide to celebrate with a meal out at cafe in the evening but Rodolfo remains to finish some work and Mimi who lives in the building calls for a match as her candle has blown out. She then loses her key and they interact as they fall in love, one of the most celebrated couplings in culture.
In the Met production there is one of the most dramatic scene changes in the history of opera presentation because of the speed at which the stage is transformed from the garret into a spectacular street and cafe scene filled with people including marching soldiers at one point. There are hundreds of extras and chorus including school children and some 80 stage hands are used to make the switch Rodolfo takes Mini along to meet his friends where Marcello finds a past love, Musetta. dining with a government Minister of my years. She sings provocatively trying to win back the affections of the painter. Musetta leaves the whole bill for the two parties for the Minister to pay when the total is more than the money gained from the work for the Englishman.
Time has passed with the third act in which Mini visits Marcello who is lodging at an Inn where he is working to complain that Rodolfo is rejecting her. Rodolfo is in fact inside the Inn and when he comes out Mimi hides and overhears him explain that he is pretending not to love because he believes she has become seriously ill and as he does not have the means to provide for her care, he is feigning a lack of interest so that she will find someone who can care for her properly and finding that he is overheard the two are reunited in their profound love for each other while Marcello and Musetta quarrel as a counterpoint.
In the final act Musetta discovers Mimi wandering the streets overcome by her illness having lived for a time with a wealthy viscount while Marcello and Rodolfo have been sharing lodgings working hard while separated from their true loves. They do their best to provide medical help and medicine for Mimi but it is too late and she dies. In 1957 papers were discovered which revealed that Puccini had written a middle third act which explains how Mimi came to meet her wealthy suitor after Musetta had been thrown out of her home with her furniture after crossing her protector.
The story is therefore not complex and as with all Puccini it is that unique combination of the operatic voice with beautiful and sensitive music, and with great acting and wondrous settings creates an experience where only the most gifted can match with words. Although on the comparatively small screen and without the sense of immediacy it was as great an experience as with Madam Butterfly and AIDA.
I have seen La Boheme before, on stage at Oxford and possibly on the small screen although no recollection and it may have been one of the operas I was taken to see as a schoolboy by my birth and care mothers and their eldest sister. I went to see Carmen definitely either as a schoolchild perhaps later because it was about Spain and gypsies and I knew that my care mother and maybe some of her other sisters had been on at least one trip to see gypsy women as well as Spanish ladies in traditional costume over the border probably at some Catholic festival. I am vague about their recollections before they came to England because their memories were not recorded and there was a long period when we did not talk about their life in Gibraltar. Harriet wanted to, but Mabel and Lena did not. I was a decade too late when I wanted to know Now all their brothers and sisters have also gone as have my older first cousins
It was a good day to watch La Boheme on the BBC i player, the coldest since last Winter, just above zero C for most of the 24 hours. La Boheme is perhaps the most watched opera along with Madam Butterfly and Carmen because of the almost continuous romantic lyricism to the extent that the audience can become overwhelmed by its combination of beautiful singing and profound emotional intensity. Most have heard the aria Che gilda manina What a cold little hand. La Boheme opened the Metropolitan Live relay season this year and I had arranged a weekend trip to see it but then Cineworld bottled out and although I could have gone locally if there were places I decided against and hesitated on discovering there was a recent production, possible the same as being shown on the live relay
La Boheme is intended to convey a place where Bohemians live and although written in Italian by the great Italian composer Puccini, the author of Madam Butterfly, Turandot and Tosca, it is traditionally set in an artistic quarter of Paris such as Montmartre of garrets and cafes, the land of Toulouse Lautrec and Berlioz. In this instance the hero is a poet Rodolfo who shares lodging with Marcello a painter, with friends Schainard, a musician and Colline. a philosopher. The heroine is Mimi, a seamstress, often portrayed as innocent and with Musetta, the singer, as worldly. The friends are cold and hungry until the musician arrives having secured work with an eccentric Englishman. They decide to celebrate with a meal out at cafe in the evening but Rodolfo remains to finish some work and Mimi who lives in the building calls for a match as her candle has blown out. She then loses her key and they interact as they fall in love, one of the most celebrated couplings in culture.
In the Met production there is one of the most dramatic scene changes in the history of opera presentation because of the speed at which the stage is transformed from the garret into a spectacular street and cafe scene filled with people including marching soldiers at one point. There are hundreds of extras and chorus including school children and some 80 stage hands are used to make the switch Rodolfo takes Mini along to meet his friends where Marcello finds a past love, Musetta. dining with a government Minister of my years. She sings provocatively trying to win back the affections of the painter. Musetta leaves the whole bill for the two parties for the Minister to pay when the total is more than the money gained from the work for the Englishman.
Time has passed with the third act in which Mini visits Marcello who is lodging at an Inn where he is working to complain that Rodolfo is rejecting her. Rodolfo is in fact inside the Inn and when he comes out Mimi hides and overhears him explain that he is pretending not to love because he believes she has become seriously ill and as he does not have the means to provide for her care, he is feigning a lack of interest so that she will find someone who can care for her properly and finding that he is overheard the two are reunited in their profound love for each other while Marcello and Musetta quarrel as a counterpoint.
In the final act Musetta discovers Mimi wandering the streets overcome by her illness having lived for a time with a wealthy viscount while Marcello and Rodolfo have been sharing lodgings working hard while separated from their true loves. They do their best to provide medical help and medicine for Mimi but it is too late and she dies. In 1957 papers were discovered which revealed that Puccini had written a middle third act which explains how Mimi came to meet her wealthy suitor after Musetta had been thrown out of her home with her furniture after crossing her protector.
The story is therefore not complex and as with all Puccini it is that unique combination of the operatic voice with beautiful and sensitive music, and with great acting and wondrous settings creates an experience where only the most gifted can match with words. Although on the comparatively small screen and without the sense of immediacy it was as great an experience as with Madam Butterfly and AIDA.
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