“The Fire of Youth, the Pain of Love, the Eternity of Music: La Bohème Brings All the Colors of Life to the Same Stage”

The Istanbul State Opera and Ballet is staging Giacomo Puccini's immortal work La Bohème... One of the most beloved and frequently staged works, La Bohème is a touching story of love and friendship set in the bohemian world of 19th-century Paris. The emotions of each character come to life through original melodies; the excitement of love, the warmth of friendship, the pain of separation, and the inevitability of death are woven into the notes.

All the characters in the opera La Bohème are based on or inspired by real people. The story of Rodolfo and Mimì brings to the stage not only the passionate love of two people, but also the fragility of life and the inevitability of loss. La Bohème is a story of friendship as well as love. Rodolfo's friends—the painter Marcello, the musician Schaunard, and the philosopher Colline—try to embellish their bohemian life of poverty with joy, dreams, and a love of art.

The author of the novel, Henry Murger, named his work “Scènes de la vie de bohème” (Scenes from Bohemian Life). Perhaps for this reason, the work does not follow a specific narrative flow, but rather comes together from a series of small scenes.

Director Yiğit Günsoy stages the work based on this key line from the opera: “O bella eta d'inganni e d'utopie! Si crede, spera, e tutto bello appare” (Oh, that beautiful age of deception and utopia! You believe, you hope, and everything seems beautiful).