More than a century has passed since the first performance Puccini's "La Boheme" in 1896, yet it remains one of the most widely performed operas in the world. That may be because the opera, a dramatization of the French writer, Henry Murger's 1849 novel "Scenes of the Bohemian Life" , seems to celebrate a lifestyle that was a construction of the 19th century but is still thriving today. Similarly the box-office success of Baz Luhrmann's film "Moulin Rouge" (2001), a pastiche extravaganza drawing on the opera, is perhaps an indication of how in the modern era, we still expect our artists to be unable to feed themselves, behave erratically, fall in love unequivocally, and live and die dysfunctionally.
It is no surprise then that "La Boheme" is currently being revived at the New National Theatre Tokyo in a production by director Jun Aguni, after its successful run there in 2003.
As is suggested by the original title of the novel, the opera was written in a "realistic" style, following the then relatively new emergence of verismo (realism) as a movement in French and Italian literature and art. In an indication of the true-to-life approach of the movement, as the opera opens with Marcello (an artist played by Karl-Magnus Fredriksson) and Rodolfo (a poet played by James Valenti) are so cold in their garret that they eventually decide to burn Rodolfo's new play in order to keep themselves warm.