La bohème

La bohème (French pronunciation: ​[la bɔ.ɛm], Italian: [la boˈɛm]) is an opera in four acts, composed by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger. The world premiere performance of La bohème was in Turin on 1 February 1896 at the Teatro Regio, conducted by the young Arturo Toscanini; its U.S. premiere took place the next year, 1897, in Los Angeles. Since then, La bohème has become part of the standard Italian opera repertory and is one of the most frequently performed operas worldwide.

In 1946, fifty years after the opera's premiere, Toscanini conducted a performance of it on radio with the NBC Symphony Orchestra. This performance was eventually released on records and on Compact Disc. It is the only recording of a Puccini opera by its original conductor (see Recordings below).

Origin of the story

According to its title page, the libretto of La bohème is based on Henri Murger's novel, Scènes de la vie de bohème, a collection of vignettes portraying young bohemians living in the Latin Quarter of Paris in the 1840s. Although usually called a novel, it has no unified plot. Like the 1849 play by Murger and Théodore Barrière, the opera's libretto focuses on the relationship between Rodolfo and Mimì, and ends with Mimì's death. Also like the play, the libretto combines two characters from the novel, Mimì and Francine, into a single Mimì character. Early in the composition stage Puccini was in dispute with the composer Leoncavallo, who said that he had offered Puccini a completed libretto and felt that Puccini should defer to him. Puccini responded that he had had no idea of Leoncavallo's interest and that having been working on his own version for some time, he felt that he could not oblige him by discontinuing with the opera. Leoncavallo completed his own version in which Marcello was sung by a tenor and Rodolfo by a baritone. It was unsuccessful and is now rarely performed.

Maria Callas

Maria Callas, Commendatore OMRI (Greek: Μαρία Κάλλας; December 2, 1923 – September 16, 1977), was a Greek-American soprano, and one of the most renowned and influential opera singers of the 20th century. Some critics praised her bel canto technique, wide-ranging voice and dramatic interpretations, while others found her voice displeasing and considered that a defective technique was responsible for her premature decline. Her repertoire ranged from classical opera seria to the bel canto operas of Donizetti, Bellini and Rossini and further, to the works of Verdi and Puccini; and, in her early career, to the music dramas of Wagner. The press dubbed her La Divina.

Born in New York City and raised by an overbearing mother, she received her musical education in Greece and established her career in Italy. Forced to deal with the exigencies of wartime poverty and with myopia that left her nearly blind onstage, she endured struggles and scandal over the course of her career. She turned herself from a heavy woman into a svelte and glamorous one after a mid-career weight loss, which might have contributed to her vocal decline and the premature end of her career. The press exulted in publicizing Callas's temperamental behavior, her supposed rivalry with Renata Tebaldi and her love affair with Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis. Although her dramatic life and personal tragedy have often overshadowed Callas the artist in the popular press, her artistic achievements were such that Leonard Bernstein called her "the Bible of opera" and her influence so enduring that, in 2006, Opera News wrote of her: "Nearly thirty years after her death, she's still the definition of the diva as artist—and still one of classical music's best-selling vocalists."

Mimi

Mimi may refer to:

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Anna Netrebko

Anna Yuryevna Netrebko (Russian: Анна Юрьевна Нетребко, born 18 September 1971) is a Russian operatic soprano. She now holds dual Russian and Austrian citizenship and currently resides in Vienna, Austria and in New York City.

Early life and training

Netrebko was born in Krasnodar (Russia), in a family of Kuban Cossack background. While a student at the Saint Petersburg conservatoire, Netrebko worked as a janitor at Saint Petersburg's Mariinsky Theatre. Later, she auditioned for the Mariinsky Theatre, where conductor Valery Gergiev recognized her from her prior work in the theatre. He subsequently became her vocal mentor.

Career

1990s

Under Gergiev's guidance, Netrebko made her operatic stage debut at the Mariinsky at age 22, as Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro. She went on to sing many prominent roles with the Kirov Opera, including Amina in La sonnambula, Pamina in Die Zauberflöte, Rosina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, and Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor. In 1994, she sang the Queen of the Night in Die Zauberflöte with the Riga Independent Opera Avangarda Akadēmija under conductor David Milnes. In 1995, at the age of 24, Netrebko made her American debut as Lyudmila in Glinka's Ruslan and Lyudmila at the San Francisco Opera. Following this successful performance, she became a frequent guest singer in San Francisco. She is known as an acclaimed interpreter of other Russian operatic roles, such as Natasha in Prokofiev's War and Peace, Louisa in Betrothal in a Monastery and Marfa in The Tsar's Bride. Netrebko has also made successful forays into bel canto and romantic roles such as Gilda in Rigoletto, Mimi in La bohème, Giulietta in Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi, and Elvira in I puritani.

Renata Tebaldi

Renata Tebaldi (pronounced [reˈnaːta teˈbaldi]; 1 February 1922 – 19 December 2004) was an Italian lirico-spinto soprano popular in the post-war period. Among the most beloved opera singers, she has been said to have possessed one of the most beautiful voices of the 20th century which was focused primarily on the verismo roles of the lyric and dramatic repertoires.

Early years and education

Tebaldi was born Renata Ersilia Clotilde Tebaldi in Pesaro on 1 February 1922. She was the daughter of a cellist, Teobaldo Tebaldi, and Giuseppina Barbieri, a nurse. Her parents separated before her birth and Tebaldi grew up with her mother in the home of her maternal grandparents in Langhirano.

Stricken with polio at the age of three, Tebaldi became interested in music and was a member of the church choir in Langhirano. At the age of thirteen her mother sent her for piano lessons with Giuseppina Passani in Parma, who took the initiative that Tebaldi study voice with Italo Brancucci, a singing teacher at the conservatory of Parma. She was admitted to the conservatory at the age of 17, taking lessons with Brancucci and Ettore Campogalliani, and later transferred to Liceo musicale Rossini in Pesaro taking lessons with Carmen Melis, and on her suggestion with Giuseppe Pais. She later studied with Beverley Peck Johnson in New York City.