La Bohème - San Francisco Opera

From Page to Stage
The story of La bohème as presented in Puccini's opera was taken and revised from pre-
existent stories. An autobiographical novel called Scènes de la vie de Bohème, by Henri
Murger, was published in serial form in 1848, forty-eight years prior to the first performance
of Puccini's opera. By the time Puccini began work on La bohème, Scènes de la vie de
Bohème existed both as the novel and in play form. Puccini was in his thirties when he
began to work on the opera, and he drew on his experiences as a young music student in
Milan in creating the world of the Bohemians. He had been so poor that he had to save
centesimi (the Italian equivalent of pennies) in order to simply go to a café in an evening.
Once he had even pawned a coat (like his character Colline) in order to take out a ballet
dancer from the La Scala opera.
The development of the opera was rife with jealousy and argument. In 1839,
Puccini's friend and fellow writer, Leoncavallo, is said to have offered Puccini his own
scenario for the opera, which Puccini supposedly turned down, only to begin working on his
own opera based on the same novel. A few months later the two friends nearly came to
blows in a café when Puccini mentioned his work on the project. The two went off to work
on their own versions of the story, leaving their friendship behind. Though Leoncavallo's
opera was well received when it opened fifteen months later, it never achieved the fame
that his one-time friend's work did. Puccini's opera opened in Turin on February 1, 1896,
conducted by Arturo Toscanini. It was only moderately successful with the critics, who did
not like or understand the sense of humor in the piece. Likewise, it was only moderately
successful with the public, who gave Puccini only five curtain calls. (You can imagine what
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