Study Guide
La bohème
Student Nights at the Opera
Thursday, January 28, 2010
6:30pm - 7:30pm
For the Classroom Teacher
This one-page, online Study Guide is meant to supplement your lesson plan on opera
and the San Diego Opera docent’s visit to your classroom. It is filled with basic
information about the opera your students are going to see at the Civic Theatre.
Click on the highlighted text with your mouse in order to see a definition of the
term, to hear an audio excerpt from the opera, or to see an image to help illustrate
the text.
For further investigation of the opera, go to Operapaedia for more articles on La bohème, the San Diego Opera Podcasts for audio programs on opera, and OperaTalk for 30-minute videos on the opera produced by UCSD-TV and the San Diego Opera Education and Outreach Program.
Students: Welcome to the Opera!
Very soon you are going to experience opera at San Diego’s Civic Theatre. We at San Diego Opera want to make sure that you have a great time seeing and hearing the spectacular sets and beautiful music, sung by some of the greatest voices in the world! In order to help you become more familiar with the opera, feel free to use this one-page study guide. Click or scroll over the words or phrases in bold and you will see images from the opera and hear music from it. Some of the links will take you to our Operapaedia site where you can read more about the opera, the composer and the period in which the opera was written. Have fun exploring the wonderful world of opera, and we look forward to seeing you at your Student Night at the Opera!
For the Student
The opera La bohème was written by Giacomo Puccini, an Italian composer who lived from 1858 to 1924. The opera was first performed in 1896 at the Teatro Regio in Turin, Italy. The story of the opera is based on a French novel by Henri Mürger called Scenes from a Bohemian Life (Scenes de la vie de bohème).
Act I
The story involves a group of young artists (bohemians) living in the Latin Quarter in Paris in the mid-19th century (Opening of the opera). One of them, Rodolfo (tenor), is a poet; his best friend Marcello (baritone) is a painter. They live together in an attic room overlooking the city but, being artists, they are quite poor. It is winter, and they are also quite cold because they don’t have enough money to buy firewood for their stove. Their other friends, Colline (bass), a philosopher, and Schaunard (baritone), a musician, make up this group of lively characters. Schaunard has made some extra money and suggests that they all go to the Café Momus to celebrate Christmas Eve. The other friends leave Rodolfo alone because he wants to complete writing one of his poems. As he writes he is interrupted by a knock at the door. Mimì (soprano), a seamstress who lives across the hall, has come asking for a match to re-light her candle which went out in the breezy stairway. Rodolfo falls in love with her at first sight and sings a beautiful aria telling her how she has affected his heart (“Che gelida manina”) . Mimì responds with her own aria (“Mi chiamano Mimì”) in which she introduces herself to him, who she is, what she does and how she lives. Rodolfo’s friends call up to him from the street, telling him to get moving so that they can go to the café. When he turns from the window and sees Mimì in the moonlight, they begin their love duet (“O soave fanciulla”) which ends the first act.
Act II
The crowds of shoppers and merry-makers in the streets of Paris are seen when the curtain goes up on the second act of the opera (Opening of Act II). Street vendors sell their wares, including all sorts of fancy foods, clothing and ornaments. When Rodolfo and his friends arrive, he buys a bonnet as a present for Mimì. They all sit down at the Café Momus and order a meal. As Marcello scans the crowd for beautiful women, he is shocked to see his former girlfriend Musetta (soprano), a singer, on the arm of an elderly gentleman named Alcindoro. He is loaded down with gifts that she’s forced him to purchase. When she sees Marcello across the café, she decides to have some fun with him by singing a waltz with lyrics expressing how attractive and desirable she is to other men (“Quando me’n vo”). This is the most recognizable melody from the opera. At the climax of the aria, she and Marcello are happily re-united, the bohemians see the bill for the meal and decide to leave quickly, instructing the waiter to make poor Alcindoro pay for it!
The music of La bohème is bright, lively and attractive, with beautiful melodies that often come from the orchestra. The orchestra is led by the conductor who gives the tempo with his baton and ‘cues’ the instruments of the orchestra (as well as the singers on stage) when it’s time for them to play or sing. Behind the stage (‘backstage’) there are many workers, moving sets and props, raising and lowering the curtain, focusing the stage lights, helping the singers to adjust their costumes or preparing props that will be used in the opera. Opera is about spectacle as well as story and music. Audiences have always expected a big ‘show’ in the opera theatre, and that’s what we try to give them!
At San Diego Opera we perform all operas in the languages for which they were written, most often Italian, French and German, but also in Russian, Czech, and even English! But you will understand every word of the opera because of the supertitles that are projected over the stage and provide a complete translation into English.
The singers in our operas are opera stars from all over the world, and who have sung in the finest opera theatres in London, Paris, Milan and New York. The San Diego Opera Chorus is a professional chorus made up mostly of singers from the San Diego area, many of whom are opera soloists in their own right.