Organization

Conductor

Evgeny Khokhlov

Stage director

Marina Shapkina

Set designer

Elena Solovyova

Samara Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet

Italian

La Bohème

Samara

Russia

Public

Approved

La bohème Puccini

The ways of opera plots are inscrutable. In 1851, the French writer Henri Murger published the book Scenes from the Life of Bohemia, a collection of short stories in which he vividly and with irony described the life of the penniless and dissolute creative youth of Paris. Half a century passed, and the theater needed stories from the lives of ordinary people, and not legendary heroes and magical creatures. But the need for strong and sincere feelings has not gone anywhere. And untalented Parisian freelancers, who sort things out with their frivolous mistresses, transformed for the sake of the Italian opera stage into tragic characters. The result is one of the most popular operas in the world.

Young Puccini - no worse than the prototypes of his heroes - himself strove for fame and earnings at any cost. He snatched the Bohemia project from under the nose of fellow composer Ruggiero Leoncavallo (author of the only hit - the opera Pagliacci). Without completely abandoning Murger's cynicism, Puccini and the tandem of his librettists focused on a love relationship that begins easily and quickly and ends in a slow, inevitable tragedy. On La Bohème, Puccini honed his trademark emotional suspense, his melodic torture techniques, which the listener wants to listen to over and over again to the end. More than a century has passed, but the story of love, blossoming and frozen in a Parisian attic, continues to be told in all opera houses. And every time it is impossible to grope for the line beyond which an easy attitude to oneself and to life should give way to something big and important - until it is too late.

In Samara, La Boheme was staged only twice before: the 1954 production was staged by director Semyon Stein, conductor Savely Bergolts and artist Yuri Babichev; The 1996 performance, timed to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the first performance of the opera, became the Samara debut of director Georgy Isahakyan, whose team included conductor Vladimir Kovalenko and artist Vyacheslav Okunev. The current production by Marina Shapkina opened the Festival in honor of the 160th anniversary of Giacomo Puccini, which took place in Samara from November 16 to 25, 2018.

English

La Bohème by Puccini, From (2021/2022), Directed by Marina Shapkina,, Conductor Evgeny Khokhlov, Samara Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet, Samara, Russia

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