The mere fact that La BohÈme, Puccini's fourth work, to which he gave the plain title of opera, is his most popular composition for the stage, makes one all the more inclined to search more minutely for weaknesses. But with repeated performances (for it has passed into the regular repertory of all opera houses wherever it has been played) its unity, both as an idea and an expression, comes out more and more with remarkable distinctness.

It captured the Italian ear and taste immediately, and babies were christened Mimi and Rodolfo just as ten years before, Santuzza and Turiddu, culled from Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana, were favourite baptismal appellations. It did not take long for England—represented, in this instance, by the comparatively limited number of opera-lovers—to take it to its heart. It delighted fastidious France and even satisfied hypercritical and essentially conservative Germany. Of all Puccini's work, it exhibits perhaps the most spontaneity, and as a piece of modern music—if the melodies themselves, apart from their very definite piquancy and freshness, do not rise to any vast heights of emotional expression—its absolute continuity is certainly a very high artistic achievement and stands unquestionably as its most striking feature.

Illica and Giocosa provided the book, and their idea in providing the framework is clearly indicated by the prefatory note to the vocal score. They begin with a quotation from the preface to Murger's Vie de BohÈme, of which the thoroughly impressionistic opera is a most spirited musical expression. The Bohemians, under which title the opera was first presented in England, does not express by any means the exact nature of the work. It is the spirit of Bohemianism—that curious almost undefinable quality, which in reality simply means the absolute living for, and in, the mood of the moment, and is not by any means the entire monopoly of the artistic temperament—that is portrayed by the dramatic scheme. In the matter of following Murger's story, which as a novel is the most free in the whole range of modern literature, the librettists have been careful to give the spirit rather than the letter. They even roll two characters, Francine and Mimi, into one; for they find that although in Murger's book characters of each person are clearly defined, one and the same temperament bears different names and is incarnated, so to speak, in two different persons. "Who cannot detect," they say, "in the delicate profile of one woman the personality both of Mimi and Francine? Who as he reads of Mimi's little hands, whiter than those of the Goddess of Ease, is not reminded of Francine's little muff?"

The librettists were content to string together four more or less detached scenes from the story. Save for the death of Mimi at the close, there is no real climax to any of the four acts. In the first act, the two chief characters go off and sing their final high note in the passage; in the third, where they part more in sorrow than in anger, the situation is varied between a similar device of finishing the duet "off" or by quietly sitting up at the back of the scene. These two, out of many points of subtlety, are mentioned merely as showing Puccini's mastery in catching the essential spirit of the dramatic scheme, which is atmospheric, or purely impressionistic. The supremacy of his art is shown in a very marked way by the preservation of the continuity of the idea by the musical expression. In this La BohÈme stands as a very notable modern work solely because of its absolute keeping to the idea which dominates it. Leoncavallo set the same story to music, writing the book himself. As a mere adaptation of a novel for stage purposes, the dramatic portion of this opera, which keeps the stage in France and Germany, may be pointed to as offering certain points of superiority. But the music is certainly not atmospheric nor impressionistic, and the two works never really come into rivalry. Puccini's La BohÈme is absolutely on its own plane, and in its own particular way supreme.

La BohÈme was composed partly at Torre del Lago and partly in a villa which Puccini took for a time at Castellaccio, near Pescia. It was given for the first time at the Teatro Regio, Turin, on February 1, 1896, Toscanini being the conductor, and cast as follows:

Its first appearance in England was interesting from the rare fact that a new opera should not only be produced within a year of its production in its native land, but that an English company should be the first to present it in our native tongue. With the title The Bohemians it was given at Manchester on April 22, 1897, at the Theatre Royal, by the Carl Rosa Company, conducted by Claude Jacquinet, and cast as follows:

It was given at Covent Garden in English, in the October of the same year, with practically the same cast. Madame Alice Esty, from whom I learnt several interesting particulars, not only of the production of the opera, but of the work in general, and some of the past history of the wonderful organisation which is still doing such excellent work in keeping alive the love for opera in English, was the first English Mimi, although she was born in Boston. There were many difficulties in the production, and, strange to say, the part of Mimi was first offered to Mdlle. Zelie de Lussan, the well-known exponent of the part of Carmen, not only in English, but in French as well. The photograph of Mdme. Alice Esty shows her in the last Act of La BohÈme; and it will be noticed that she wears, not the customary black gown of the little seamstress, but one of some pretensions to magnificence. She followed, she told me, the idea of the composer, who particularly wished to bring out the fact that Mimi, after parting with Rodolfo, had formed an alliance with a rich viscount. This little incident, it will be remembered, is duly referred to by Musetta in the text.

I have also talked with Puccini about this first English performance of La BohÈme. "I always feel about past performances," he said, "in the same way as dead people. Let us say nothing about them but good. But I shall never forget the shock it was to me on arriving at the theatre to find the disposition of the orchestra in a fashion which I have never seen except at a circus. Out of two boxes at each end the bass brass on the one side and the drum on the other gave forth detached blares and pops which really frightened the life out of me. They did not seem to have anything to do with the general musical scheme. I heard this band rehearsal start, and then I saw that the right idea, simply because of the square-cut idea as to the tempi on the part of the conductor was absolutely away from the spirit of the work. I asked the band to take a rest and then took two rehearsals with the piano myself. It was not long before the artists, all of them sincerely concerned with the proper interpretation of my ideas, and myself got into complete accord. I was very pleased on the whole with the way it eventually went, and although I did not see the subsequent London production, Ricordi told me that the Manchester performance was far more spontaneous."

How wonderfully Puccini is able, by playing a score of his on the piano and by his eloquent directions as to interpretation, to convey his subtlest meaning to an artist, I can speak from actual knowledge. I have heard him take a singer through a good deal of this very opera. Under his almost magical hands, a well learned interpretation is transformed into a genuinely spontaneous interpretation. Puccini in the present year of grace, when I told him that I had seen an important opera revived in the provinces with the same strange disposal of the orchestra which had caused him such distress, threw back his head and roared with laughter, not in the least unkindly. "You are a delightful people and seriously artistic, but you will keep on doing such funny things."

For a long time, however, Mdme. Melba, who in this country has invariably, since her first performance of the part in Italian here, been seen in the character, has appeared in the final scene in much the same plain dress as in the opening Act, the reason, doubtless, being that Mimi's loneliness and poverty should be emphasised. Lately, however, Mdme. Melba has reverted to the original method of dressing the part, and appears in the last scene in an even more elaborate evening gown of pale blue satin, with a cloak, and dispenses with a hat.

La BohÈme was brought to London after its first production, as we have seen, and was played about twenty times that season. The Covent Garden production in Italian was two years later, on June 30, 1899, when Mancinelli conducted, the cast being as follows:

It will be noticed that the gifted lady who was in the mind of the Carl Rosa authorities, for their initial production, as Mimi, was then seen in the particular part for which her temperament fitted her. By substituting Caruso as the Rodolfo—it is one of the very finest parts of this tenor—and Scotti as the Marcello, we have practically the same cast as that with which this opera at the present time fills Covent Garden; invariably one of its most brilliant audiences.

In June 1898 Paris saw La BohÈme at the Opera Comique, for which performance the composer visited the French Capital, for the first time, to superintend some of the first rehearsals. It went to America in the December of the same year, when it was mounted at the Academy of Music, Philadelphia, and sung in Italian. Melba was the Mimi, De Lussan the Musetta, and Pandolfini the Rodolfo. New York had seen it, in English, at the American Theatre, in the previous month. This production, in which the Rodolfo was J.F. Sheehan; the Mimi, Yvonne de Treville; and the Musetta, Villa Knox, was by Henry W. Savage's Castle Square Opera Company. It was given in French at New Orleans in the winter of 1900 by Barrich's Company. It was first given in Germany at the Ander Wren Theatre, Vienna, Frances Saville being the Mimi and Franz Naval the Rodolfo.

Coming to the story, which with the music is by this time so familiar to opera-goers, the composer, in characteristic fashion, plunges us at once, without scarcely as much as a few bars of prelude, into the midst of things. At the outset the atmosphere is established by the restless, vivacious, detached and spirited phrase which, if it hardly ever assumes the proportions, musically considered, of a leading theme, at least flavours very strongly the whole musical fabric. It may well be taken to represent the free unrestrained spirit of the Vie de BohÈme. The curtain rises quickly, and we see an attic, inhabited by the quartet of gay spirits, those bold adventurers, as Murger calls them, who are stopped by nothing—rain or dust, cold or heat. Every day's existence is a work of genius, a daily problem. Now abstemious as anchorites, now riding forth on the most ruinous fancies, not finding enough windows whence to throw their money. Truly, as Murger puts it, a gay life yet a terrible one!

Rodolfo, the poet, gazes pensively out of the window, Marcello, the artist, is painting the passage of the Red Sea. It is Christmas Eve, and the cold is bitter: and to keep the stove alight, they burn up a MS.—a drama—of Rodolfo's.

All through this scene of colloquial and snappy dialogue, the music runs with remarkable movement. Soon Schaunard the musician comes in. He has been lucky enough not only to find a job but to get paid for it; and he tells us it was an Englishman who employed him. He has bought provisions with the spoil, and they spread the feast, in true Bohemian fashion, with a newspaper for table cloth. They begin the meal with light-hearted merriment, when the landlord comes in to collect his much overdue rent. That worthy is amazed to find his tenants can pay it, and after taking a glass with them, and chatting about his amours, the four irresponsibles get rid of him. They then decide on a visit to the cafÉ Momus in the Latin quarter, and leave Rodolfo behind for a space, as he has to finish an article for the Beaver. "Be quick, then," says Marcello, "and cut the Beaver's tale short."

As Rodolfo sits at the table to work, a timid knock is heard at the door, and Mimi, the pretty little seamstress who occupies a room near the roof, and who is already in the grip of the fell disease, consumption, comes in to ask for a light, her candle having been extinguished by the draught in the passage. She is evidently worn out by cough, cold and fatigue, and Rodolfo, after reviving her with a little wine, makes a remark as to her delicate beauty. Mimi, however, has not come to chatter or to be flattered, and with thanks, prettily expressed, she departs for her chamber. Fate, in the shape of a lost key, sends her back again, and the draught in the passage puts out not only Mimi's candle, but Rodolfo's as well. While they both search for the key, Mimi's cold little hand touches that of Rodolfo, and the latter clasps it; and he then tells her of his life and aims and prospects in the beautifully melodious number, Che gelida manina, which, like so many of Puccini's themes, seems to grow out of the reiteration of a single note, swelling out in a delightful emotional fulness. Mimi tells Rodolfo of her work, and how she embroiders flowers on rich stuffs, which make her think of the green fields and the sweet scents of the country side; how lonely she is all by herself in her little top attic; how she takes her frugal supper all alone. The two natures are quickly brought together, and Mimi is soon in Rodolfo's arms and has received his first passionate kiss. The three friends outside now call up to him, and he says he has three lines to finish, but that he will join them anon, and that he wants two places kept at the supper table. With a full confession of her love, Mimi takes Rodolfo's arm, and their last notes, "My love, my love," are heard as they descend the staircase.

At the cafÉ Momus—the exterior of which we see as the curtain rises on the second Act, preceded by a clever and vivacious phrase given to the trumpets in the orchestra—our four brave Bohemians were known as the Four Musketeers, since they were inseparable. "Indeed," says Murger, "they always went about together, played together, dined together, often without paying the bill, yet always with a beautiful harmony worthy of the conservatoire orchestra." In this scene, which is full of life and movement—showing in the treatment of the chorus, formed of children, people, soldiers, students, work girls, and gendarmes, that beautifully polished technique in melodic construction which makes Puccini so strong and in every way a master musician—the lively Musetta comes on the scene. Once more may Murger's own words fittingly recall her to mind. "Mademoiselle Musetta was a pretty girl of twenty, very coquettish, rather ambitious, but without any pretensions to spelling. Oh, those delightful suppers ... a perpetual alternative between a blue brougham and an omnibus: between the Rue Breda and the Latin quarter."

Although the incidents represented appear to follow consecutively, it is a little strange to find a sort of al fresco entertainment in progress after the references to the bitter cold in the preceding Act. At any rate, whether the dramatist's license be allowed or not—and we may easily imagine a flight of time to have taken place since the happenings in the opening Act—the cafÉ Momus, in this second Act, is so full that our quartet of Bohemians, with Musetta and her elderly admirer, take their supper en plein air. There is little of incident, or progress of events, in this lively scene. Musetta is reconciled after singing her delicious song, in slow waltz form, to her Marcello, and the fatuous old Alcindoro is left to pay the bill of the whole party. Yet against this, the sense of movement and gaiety, shown by the ever-moving crowd, and the incident of the toy-seller Parpignol—just a plain slice of life put down on the stage in a truly modern method—is beautifully worked out in the music, and never for an instant does it flag in vivacity.

Musetta comes into prominence again in the third Act. Again is the weather intensely cold, and the chill drear atmosphere is indicated in the music at the opening by the subtle passage of bare fifths, which is further remarkable as a purely musical effect from its connection with the trumpet passage which heralded the second Act. The scene is a place beyond the toll-gate, on the Orleans road, at the end of the Rue d'Enfer. Over a tavern hangs Marcello's picture as a signboard, with its title altered to the Port of Marseilles, signifying its adaptation to its environment.

Two scenes of parting dominate the dramatic plan of this Act, that of Rodolfo and Mimi, and that of Marcello and Musetta. They are cleverly contrasted. Very pathetically does Mimi's "addio senza rancor" come from the depths of her simple little heart, while the end is foreshadowed by the hacking cough which frequently chokes her utterances. Musetta is taken to task by Marcel for flirting, and off she goes after a strongly dramatic duet, which for characterisation and force is one of the most distinctive numbers in the opera; and after her exit, in a fury, Mimi and Rodolfo appear to agree, indicated by the last phrases of their tender duet, to continue together, for yet a space, in the old relations.

In the fourth Act we are back in the attic; and the quartet of Bohemians are once more struggling with the problem of keeping body and soul together. Two of them, Rodolfo and Marcel, at any rate, are lonely, for Mimi has been taken up by a viscount, and Musetta, dressed in velvet—through which, as Rudolfo tells Marcel, she cannot hear her heart beat—is riding in a carriage. But with all their troubles they keep a stout heart and are able to jest over the herring and rolls which Schaunard and Colline bring in for dinner. They dance and romp, and play the fool in the lightest hearted manner until Musetta suddenly breaks in upon their pretended jollity. The end is reached rapidly. Mimi has come home to die, and this she does after an intensely sad, simple and moving scene, stretched, as they placed her, on Rodolfo's hard little bed. Infinitely touching is Mimi's reference, in her last words, to the song which Rodolfo sang in the opening Act. She begins Che gelida manina only to break off in a fit of coughing. Marcello has gone out to fetch a doctor and Musetta brings a muff to warm the dying girl's fingers. Mimi's spirit passes away however before aid can be brought to her, and the pathos of the situation is intensified by the silence in which it takes place. It is Schaunard who whispers to Marcello that she is dead. To Rodolfo's last despairing cry of "Mimi! Mimi!" as he realises that his loved one is no more, does the curtain fall.

There is little to point to in the music save its chief and outstanding feature, its continuity. In this the whole charm and strength of the work lies. Orchestrally, the score of La BohÈme is a beautifully polished one, not so symphonically complete as Manon for instance, but essentially individual. For fulness as a constructional background one may point to the orchestration of the duet in the first Act; for daintiness of effect, the use of harmonics on the harp against the muted strings in Musetta's waltz-song; while many happy touches are seen all through, such as the xylophone and muted trumpets at the toy-sellers' entrance in the cafÉ scene; or again, the striking passage in fifths at the opening of the third Act, given to the harp and flutes over the 'cellos playing tremolo. The orchestra employed is the usual large modern orchestra, with a piccolo, glockenspiel and xylophone. Considerable use is also made of the division of the 'cellos, in many places, into three.

The complete success, notwithstanding certain difficulties that have been referred to, of the first performance of the opera in this country, was duly chronicled in London, on the day following the event, in The Times. The notice states that the composer was called at the end and bowed his acknowledgments, from which it would appear that he was prevailed upon at least to appear on the fall of the curtain, although, by all accounts I have heard from those who took part in the performance, Puccini adopted the custom—followed, if we may believe certain traditions, by certain notable playwrights—of wandering up and down the streets until the premiÈre was over.

The writer of the notice in question places the work on a higher level than Manon, speaks of the highly dramatic intensity reached by simple means in the scenes between Mimi and Rodolfo, notices in the absence of set songs the Wagnerian method of continuous melody, and sums it up as a decided success gained by the beauty of its melody, the refinement of the music as a whole, the cleverness in the handling of the themes, and by the absence of clap-trap. The performance is spoken of as a genuine triumph, in spite of the leading tenor's hoarseness.