Premiere of Giacomo Puccini's La Bohème received long applause and ovationsOpera — 19. May 2024.
The Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb premiered Giacomo Puccini's famous opera La Bohème on May 17, 2024, with Pier Giorgio Morandi and Josip Šego as conductors. The stage director was the Argentinian Mario Pontiggia who also staged Puccini's opera Tosca at the CNT in Zagreb in 2022.
Although Puccini's work about Parisian bohemians was not successful at the world opening night in Torino in 1896, every following performance received ovations. La Bohème became one of the most popular operas in history. With this premiere, the CNT in Zagreb joins other European theatres in the marking of the 100th death anniversary of the prominent composer.
The libretto was created after the novel Scenes of Bohemian Life written by Henry Murger that describes the student and artistic world of the Parisian Latin Quarter. Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacoso were writing it for two years due to the demanding Puccini who composed the score in eight months.
The soloists, Chorus and Orchestra of the CNT in Zagreb will take the spectators into some past times and show why today this Puccini's opera is an unavoidable and loved work of opera houses around the world, said Željka Barišić Pulig, the director of the Opera of the CNT in Zagreb.
Puccini, the master of orchestration, virtuosity, and imaging of human emotions, through diverse music depicted two great operatic loves: the gentle, persistent, and tragic love of poet Rodolfo and seamstress Mimì and the passionate and tempestuous love of painter Marcello and Musette. At the beginning of the opera, we follow young artists who are on the verge of starvation and on their way to the Café. A chance encounter with the gentle neighbour stops one of them and so commences a series of events that have a tragic ending.
La Bohème is absolutely a masterpiece in the history of opera on the global level. It is my favourite Puccini's opera, a work that always amazes me. In the new production we have two excellent casts with whom I have worked intensively and succeed to achieve their utmost professional engagement and complete dedication in the search for the Puccini style and phrase said conductor Pier Giorgio Morandi.
The spectators can enjoy this world classic on several dates, since La Bohème is scheduled for May 18, 20, 21, 23 and 24, 2024 and tickets have been sold out for weeks
