2 - La bohème: organicism, progress and the press

Summary

La bohème is nowadays one of the best-loved and most frequently performed of all Puccini's operas. After its première in February 1896 it was swiftly adopted into the repertory of all the major theatres across Italy, and performances soon followed in such diverse cities as Buenos Aires, Alexandria, Moscow, Lisbon, Manchester, Berlin, Rio de Janeiro, Mexico, London, Vienna, Los Angeles and The Hague. However, the response of the audience that listened to its first performance at Turin's Teatro Regio was subdued, and that in Rome a short time later little more enthusiastic. Critical responses were polarised (one commentator referred to them as either di cotte or di crude – burnt or raw) and coloured by a significant event that had taken place in Turin a little over a month earlier – the first Italian production of Götterdämmerung. In a city where many critics were relatively tolerant of forward-looking musical tendencies, La bohème was not judged on its own terms but became caught up in heated arguments about the merits of Wagner's music and ideas. Two key themes emerged from the comparison with Wagner: the issue of organic wholeness in music and the separate but related issue of organic growth, or how Italian music ought to progress. Thus, despite the subsequent popular success of La bohème, its initial critical reception was dominated by anxieties about the vitality of contemporary Italian music and its ability to keep pace with musical developments elsewhere in Europe.