Leoncavallo's Wed. July 30, 2003 Vincent
La Selva
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BACKGROUND OF THE OPERA The story behind Leoncavallo's La Boh�me began when Ruggiero Leoncavallo encountered his friend Giacomo Puccini in a caf� and suggested to him that they collaborate on an opera based on Henri Murger's book Sc�nes de la Vie de Boh�me. Leoncavallo's idea was that Puccini would write the music to Leoncavallo's adaptation of the novel. Just how thoroughly Leoncavallo may have discussed his ideas for the libretto with Puccini we do not know, but the final forms of the two libretti have a good deal in common. Where the libretti differ from the novel, they often differ in a suspiciously similar way. For example, in the novel Mim�, only one of Rodolfo's many loves, dies alone in a hospital. Both libretti have her as a principal character and depict her death in the last act as the climax of the opera. Given the richness of material in Murger's novel, the incident of Mim� and other similarities tend to suggest that Leoncavallo explained his ideas for the adaptation rather fully to Puccini, who then passed them on to Illica and Giacosa, his own librettists. In any case, Puccini left Leoncavallo with the impression that he did not consider La Boh�me a promising subject. Therefore, when in 1895 Leoncavallo heard that Puccini was hard at work on La Boh�me, his surprise and anger were the result of his feeling of betrayal, of having been duped. His reaction was to announce to the musical world that he would write his own Boh�me, in spite of Puccini. Nevertheless, Puccini's headstart could not be overcome, and his La Boh�me, the opera now well known and loved by generations of opera-goers, took the stage first, at Turin, on February 1, 1896. Leoncavallo, undiscouraged by the success of his rival, continued to work on his version, and on May 6, 1897, Leoncavallo's La Boh�me was given its first performance at the Teatro Fenice in Venice. It was not entirely coincidental that Puccini's La Boh�me was being offered on the same night in another theater in Venice, for Leoncavallo had hoped to achieve just that situation. Nor was it entirely coincidental that on March 26, 1977 that situation was recreated in New York City when the New York Grand Opera gave Leoncavallo's La Boh�me its American professional stage premi�re while ten blocks away the Metropolitan Opera was offering Puccini's La Boh�me in its 541st performance there. The overwhelming popularity of Puccini's opera, however, is not sufficient reason to keep Leoncavallo's La Boh�me out of the opera house. Audiences do, after all, accept both Manon and Manon Lescaut, and even Auber's Manon Lescaut has been getting more attention recently. In the same season in New York one may hear Gounod's Faust, Boito's Mefistofele, and Berlioz's Damnation de Faust, all having their passionate adherents, all adding their richness and diversity to our musical experience. Therefore, knowing the eclectic taste of New York audiences, New York Grand Opera confidently presents Leoncavallo's La Boh�me. Though Puccini's opera is the favorite of many, Leoncavallo's may very well prove to be welcome, not as a rival, but as an interesting and compelling addition to the operatic literature. In Leoncavallo's La Boh�me the familiar roles are sung by different voices: Marcello is a tenor, Rodolfo a baritone. Musetta is a lyric mezzo, Colline a baritone. Mim� is a soprano, but she does not dominate the opera so thoroughly as Puccini's Mim�, Musetta's role being relatively larger. The role of Schaunard, almost a comprimario in Puccini's opera, is much larger in Leoncavallo's Boh�me. Schaunard participates in every scene; he is a master of ceremonies, and his rather melodramatic and tiresome lady-love Eufemia appears with him. The larger part allotted to Schaunard by Leoncavallo may be explained in part by the composer's own youthful experiences: far more than Puccini, for whom the claim is sometimes made, Leoncavallo himself had actually lived the life of a Schaunard, a hand-to-mouth existence as a musician down on his luck, in most of the capitals of Europe, playing in caf�s much like the famous Momus for his supper and perhaps a few sous. This life no doubt had its lighter moments, but it was nevertheless a life of desperation, undertaken not out of indifference to material cares but out of a specific financial tragedy for which Leoncavallo himself had not been responsible. The impresario of Chatterton, Leoncavallo's first opera, had absconded with the box office receipts, leaving Leoncavallo a ruined man. In light of this devastating experience, the depth of passion, frustration and anguish expressed in his music for La Boh�me is easily understood. One aspect of his art for which Leoncavallo has received perhaps too little appreciation is that he wrote the libretti for his operas himself. Few composers have successfully practiced both arts -- that of the musician and that of the poet. Richard Wagner in the 19th century and Gian Carlo Menotti in the 20th are outstanding exceptions. When we are moved by an aria such as "Vesti la giubba" in Pagliacci or "Testa adorata" in La Boh�me, the emotion we experience comes not only from the music but also from the perfect wedding of words to music that makes both express the same feeling as one. The text of Leoncavallo's La Boh�me is beautiful and poetic on its own, even without the music. "Testa adorata", textually as well as musically, is the outpouring of a man yearning for the presence of his beloved, disconsolate with grief at her absence. Leoncavallo's La Boh�me is intensely veristic; his characters suffer as much as they play, cry as often as they laugh. Though the first two acts are light-hearted, showing the sunlit side of the Bohemian life, the last two are painful, bitter and tragic, more reminiscent of the suffering Pagliacci than of the gaiety of Puccini's Bohemians. |
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| Leoncavallo's La Boh�me Performed July 30, 2003 A few images from the production |
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