Giacomo Puccini's La Boheme is one of the most frequently performed operas in the world. But how did it come to be so adored? In this book, author Alexandra Wilson traces La Boheme's rise to fame and demonstrates that its success grew steadily through stage performances, recordings, filmed versions and the endorsements of star singers. More recently, popular songs, film soundtracks and musicals that draw on the opera's music and themes added further to its immense cultural impact.
This cultural history offers a fresh reading of a familiar work. Wilson argues that La Boheme's approach to realism and its flouting of conventions of the Italian operatic tradition made it strikingly modern for the 1890s. She explores how Puccini and his librettists engaged with gender, urban poverty and nostalgia--themes that grew out of the work's own time and continue to resonate with audiences more than 120 years later. Her analysis of the opera's depiction of Paris reveals that La Boheme was not only influenced by the romantic mythologies surrounding the city to this day but also helped shape them. Wilson's consideration of how directors have reinvented this opera for a new age completes this fascinating history of La Boheme, making it essential reading for anyone interested in this opera and the works it inspired.
Industry Reviews
"[Wilson's] own love for & insight into the work, & indeed into Puccini's individual approach to music drama, shine out...she deftly identifies the strong reasons why connoisseurs continue to delight in the piece. [She] is scrupulous in addressing still-prevalent negative attitudes fully and fairly, while ultimately refuting them...measured and observant." -- Opera Magazine
"Wilson's exploration of La bohème takes the reader on a thoroughly fascinating journey, which starts from an approachable, jargon-free reading of the opera and its cultural context, and then travels from late nineteenth-century Paris, where the opera is set, through diverse times and places.ÂBalancing admirably between documents and interpretation, and paying due attention to popular culture and conceptual staging, this book is a model in
its kind, and will engage readers who are looking for an entry point into a beloved masterpiece as well as those who are already familiar with La bohème and in search of new insights and perspectives." -- Francesco Izzo,
Professor of Music University of Southampton and General Editor of The Works of Giuseppe Verdi
"Wilson is one of a few truly innovative Puccini scholars writing today. In this fascinating new book she explains how DL against many odds and contrary to the expectations of early critics DL La bohème became the work that still speaks to all of us, across generations and regardless of national, social and cultural boundaries. Her book is peppered with fascinating responses to Puccini's opera, from directors, critics and audiences. If we are to
understand the success of Puccini's language, we have to look beyond conventional ideas of operatic italianità. Wilson's book shows us how to do this." -- Axel Körner, University College London
