Giacomo Puccini
La Bohème
Upcoming Performances
Overview
Four brilliant casts take the stage as Puccini’s lovesick young bohemians in Franco Zeffirelli’s picturesque production. Sopranos Ailyn Pérez, Eleonora Buratto, Kristina Mkhitaryan, and Corinne Winters alternate as the delicate seamstress Mimì, and tenors Dmytro Popov, Matthew Polenzani, and Joseph Calleja share the role of the enamored poet Rodolfo. Maestros Kensho Watanabe, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Alexander Soddy, and Riccardo Frizza take the podium for performances throughout the season.
Production a gift of Mrs. Donald D. Harrington
Revival a gift of Mastercard and the Metropolitan Opera Club
The Met is grateful to C. Graham Berwind, III for sponsoring the refurbishment of the La Bohème sets
Languages
Languages sung in La Bohème
Sung In
Italian
Titles
Title languages displayed for La Bohème
Met Titles In
- English
- German
- Spanish
- Italian
Timeline
Timeline for the show, La Bohème
Estimated Run Time
3 hrs 5 mins
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House Opens
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Acts I and II
60 mins
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Intermission
35 mins
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Act III
25 mins
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Intermission
35 mins
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Act IV
30 mins
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Opera Ends
Cast
Select a date from the dropdown to filter cast by date of performance
World premiere: Teatro Regio, Turin, 1896. La Bohème, the passionate, timeless, and indelible story of love among young artists in Paris, can stake its claim as the world’s most popular opera. It has a marvelous ability to make a powerful first impression and to reveal unsuspected treasures after dozens of hearings. At first glance, La Bohème is the definitive depiction of the joys and sorrows of love and loss; on closer inspection, it reveals the deep emotional significance hidden in the trivial things—a bonnet, an old overcoat, a chance meeting with a neighbor—that make up our everyday lives.
Creators
Giacomo Puccini (1858–1924) was immensely popular in his own lifetime, and his mature works remain staples in the repertory of most of the world’s opera companies. His librettists for La Bohème, Giuseppe Giacosa (1847–1906) and Luigi Illica (1857–1919), also collaborated with him on his next two operas, Tosca and Madama Butterfly. Giacosa, a dramatist, was responsible for the stories and Illica, a poet, worked primarily on the words themselves.
PRODUCTION
Franco Zeffirelli
SET DESIGNER
Franco Zeffirelli
COSTUME DESIGNER
Peter J. Hall
LIGHTING DESIGNER
Gil Wechsler
COMPOSER
Giacomo Puccini
Setting
The libretto sets the action in Paris, circa 1830. This is not a random setting, but rather reflects the issues and concerns of a particular time when, following the upheavals of revolution and war, French artists had lost their traditional support base of aristocracy and church. The story centers on self-conscious youth at odds with mainstream society—a Bohemian ambience that is clearly recognizable in any modern urban center. La Bohème captures this ethos in its earliest days.
Videos
Music
Lyrical and touchingly beautiful, the score of La Bohème exerts an immediate emotional pull. Many of its most memorable melodies are built incrementally, with small intervals between the notes that carry the listener with them on their lyrical path. This is a distinct contrast to the grand leaps and dives that earlier operas often depended on for emotional effect. La Bohème’s melodic structure perfectly captures the “small people” (as Puccini called them) of the drama and the details of everyday life.
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