Lyric Opera 2018-2019 Issue 7 La Boheme #2

O P E R A N O T E S | L Y R I C O P E R A O F C H I C A G O 26 | January 10 - 31, 2019 T he scintillating American soprano Geraldine Farrar left a delightful anecdote regarding her debut at the Opéra de Monte Carlo in 1904. Farrar was onstage listening to the tenor of the evening deliver his aria, after which she was to begin her own. The elegant diva had initially been unimpressed by her colleague’s appearance, noting he was “was clad in shrieking checks, topped by a grey fedora, yellow gloves, and grasping a gold-headed cane.” But when he began to sing, the astonishing beauty of his voice so enraptured her she found herself transfixed. “I forgot all about the theater, the actions, everything,” Farrar recalled. “I sat there sobbing like a child. When my cue came, I did not hear it. The orchestra hesitated. My mother, who was in the wings, waved dramatically at me. I did not see her. I was having a beautiful, old-fashioned cry. Then the prompter arose from his seat and said 'Well, Miss Farrar, are you going to sing or not?'” The tenor in question was the blazing Italian supernova Enrico Caruso, and the opera was Giacomo Puccini’s La bohème. Bohème is among the most admired of operas. It has been said that box-office health is a simple matter of “A, B, C” – Aida, Bohème, and Carmen. Bohème ’s extraordinary popularity was unimaginable when the opera first appeared, however. Farrar’s reminiscence is a treasurable bit of theatrical nostalgia – but it also provides a telling glimpse into an operatic success that may never have occurred had it not been for the insight and determination of some very influential singers. The second half of the 19th century was a time of formidable development in Italian opera. Giuseppe Verdi had boldly transcended the traditions of bel canto and the structures of opera from earlier in the century to endow the Italian lyric theater with a level of musical/ dramatic cohesion heretofore unknown. A gritty naturalism had also crept into the arts; initially through the paintings of Antonio Mancini and Francesco Paolo Michetti, as well as in literature as manifested by writer Giovanni Verga. In opera, Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana and Ruggero Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci had defined a new operatic genre, that of verismo, or realism. It was into this heady milieu that Puccini made his early forays into composition. Puccini was born into a venerated musical family in Lucca; his father, grandfather, great-, and great-great-grandfather had all held the position of maestro di cappella at the Cattedrale di San Martino. After graduating from Milan Conservatory, he composed two operas, Le villi and Edgar , neither of which won success. Then in 1893, Puccini enjoyed a triumph with Manon Lescaut , which premiered at Turin’s Teatro Regio. No less an authority than George Bernard Shaw opined, “Puccini looks to me more like the heir of Verdi than any of his rivals.” But as any artist can attest, coming up the second time after an acknowledged victory is one of the most dangerous moments in a career. The world is full of one-hit wonders. None of Leoncavallo’s subsequent operas achieved the success of Pagliacci (including his rival version of Bohème , which more or less died on the vine). Puccini knew he needed to proceed judiciously. For inspiration, he turned to French poet Henri Murger’s Scènes de la vie de Bohème . Set in Paris, Murger’s episodic novella presented a series of colorful vignettes which related the escapades of a disparate group of young people living a romanticized Bohemian existence in the Latin Quarter. A stage adaptation by playwright Théodore Barrière had proven to be wildly successful. Giulio Ricordi, who commissioned the opera, assigned the team of Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa as librettists. As with the play, Illica and Giacosa took several liberties with Murger’s novel, combining the characters of Mimì and Francine, and tweaking matters to minimize similarities to Verdi’s La traviata . Puccini viscerally resonated with the material. “I lived that bohème ,” he enthused, “when there wasn’t any thought stirring in my brain of seeking the theme of an opera.” La bohème premiered at the Teatro Regio on February 1, 1896, La bohème and the Wisdom of Singers By Mark Thomas Ketterson The Café de Paris, from an 1843 engraving by M. L. Bosredon.