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dangermousieAfter my recent Rent frenzy, I dug out my CD of La Boheme, Puccini's brilliant opera that Rent is based on.
It's based on a 19th century "Scènes de la vie de Bohème" by Henry Murger. I haven't read it but might some day). You can find an English translation of the book here (I flipped through it. Hmmm, everybody is either dead or respectable at the end. I much prefer the adaptations). There is also a lovely silent movie with John Gilbert and Lillian Gish. And of course Baz Luhrman's Moulin Rouge is a cross between Camille and La Boheme.
In the original, Rodolpho is a young writer. He lives in a garret with his best friend Marcello, a painter. There are also Colline and Shaunard, their bohemian friends. (Colline is a philosopher and Shaunard is a musician but they aren't a couple :P)
Rodolpho falls in love with his neighbor Mimi. They meet when she comes to ask him to light her candle and faints in his arms. He hides the key she lost to talk to her for a bit longer. She tells him she embroiders for a living. And during that scene in the garret they fall in love on sight and basically decide to get together. And he buys her a bonnet, which is awwwww. Mimi, of course, has tuberculosis.
Meanwhile, Marcello has his own on-off relationship with the flirty Musetta. But hey, any woman who can get her rich old "admirer" to pay the dinner bill of her boyfriend and his friends isn't all bad.
Rodolpho and Mimi's relationship isn't all roses. They try to separate repeatedly but can't. Rodolpho claims it's because he is jealous, but in reality it's because he knows Mimi has TB and he can't bear to see her so sick, and he knows he has no money to take care of her, while another admirer definitely would. Mimi overhears him telling Marcello this and tells him she will leave. But in the end, they can't bear to and agree to part in the Spring instead, which they do. Mimi "takes up" with a Viscount, and Rodolpho thinks she is OK, but one day Musetta shows up with dying Mimi who's left the Viscount. So Rodolpho and Mimi have this amazingly angsty scene ("I want to die near him! Perhaps he's waiting for me") and then she dies as he sobs over her body.
If you want to read the English translation of the libretto go here. But what really makes it amazing is the music. My favorites are the part where Mimi and Rodolpho sing after Musetta finds her and the bit where Rodolpho confides to Marcello that Mimi is ill. But the only part that makes me really cry is the aria when Colline sells his coat to get money for Mimi's medicines.
I saw Baz Luhrman's version of the Opera on Broadway a few years back, where he got Opera singers who are actually young and can act and was blown away. Cue lots of crying on my part. The Australian version of his staging has been filmed and is available on Amazon.
Pic from Baz's version:
No idea if this is Baz's version, but I like the pic:
More of Baz's version:
The silent movie version:
It's based on a 19th century "Scènes de la vie de Bohème" by Henry Murger. I haven't read it but might some day). You can find an English translation of the book here (I flipped through it. Hmmm, everybody is either dead or respectable at the end. I much prefer the adaptations). There is also a lovely silent movie with John Gilbert and Lillian Gish. And of course Baz Luhrman's Moulin Rouge is a cross between Camille and La Boheme.
In the original, Rodolpho is a young writer. He lives in a garret with his best friend Marcello, a painter. There are also Colline and Shaunard, their bohemian friends. (Colline is a philosopher and Shaunard is a musician but they aren't a couple :P)
Rodolpho falls in love with his neighbor Mimi. They meet when she comes to ask him to light her candle and faints in his arms. He hides the key she lost to talk to her for a bit longer. She tells him she embroiders for a living. And during that scene in the garret they fall in love on sight and basically decide to get together. And he buys her a bonnet, which is awwwww. Mimi, of course, has tuberculosis.
Meanwhile, Marcello has his own on-off relationship with the flirty Musetta. But hey, any woman who can get her rich old "admirer" to pay the dinner bill of her boyfriend and his friends isn't all bad.
Rodolpho and Mimi's relationship isn't all roses. They try to separate repeatedly but can't. Rodolpho claims it's because he is jealous, but in reality it's because he knows Mimi has TB and he can't bear to see her so sick, and he knows he has no money to take care of her, while another admirer definitely would. Mimi overhears him telling Marcello this and tells him she will leave. But in the end, they can't bear to and agree to part in the Spring instead, which they do. Mimi "takes up" with a Viscount, and Rodolpho thinks she is OK, but one day Musetta shows up with dying Mimi who's left the Viscount. So Rodolpho and Mimi have this amazingly angsty scene ("I want to die near him! Perhaps he's waiting for me") and then she dies as he sobs over her body.
If you want to read the English translation of the libretto go here. But what really makes it amazing is the music. My favorites are the part where Mimi and Rodolpho sing after Musetta finds her and the bit where Rodolpho confides to Marcello that Mimi is ill. But the only part that makes me really cry is the aria when Colline sells his coat to get money for Mimi's medicines.
I saw Baz Luhrman's version of the Opera on Broadway a few years back, where he got Opera singers who are actually young and can act and was blown away. Cue lots of crying on my part. The Australian version of his staging has been filmed and is available on Amazon.
Pic from Baz's version:
No idea if this is Baz's version, but I like the pic:
More of Baz's version:
The silent movie version:
