It also contains some incredible non-narrative scene-setting music, the openings of Acts II and III in particular masterclasses in producing atmosphere through sound.

You’ll come to recognise his use of small musical motifs that though not highly structural, cunningly evoke characters and themes throughout the work. It offers all the hallmarks of his canon, soaring tonal melodies in lush orchestrations combined with a dissonant undertow, a hint of darkness never far away. The narrative, set around the late 1830s in Paris, has aged remarkably well with a youthful universality that has endeared it to the opera-going public more or less continuously since its 1896 premiere.īohème was Giacomo Puccini’s fourth opera and is generally considered to be his first fully mature work. It is a triumphant blend of grim reality and soaring romanticism.

La bohème is a warhorse of the operatic repertory, one of the most frequently performed around the world, and for excellent reason. Adolfo Hohenstein's 1896 poster for La bohème

La boheme opera sydney