O soave fanciulla (La bohème)

Puccini worked on La bohème between 1893 and 1895, drawing on Henri Murger's Scènes de la vie de bohème and quarrelling publicly with Leoncavallo, who claimed the subject as his own. The premiere took place at the Teatro Regio in Turin on 1 February 1896, conducted by the twenty-eight-year-old Arturo Toscanini; the audience stayed reserved and the critics divided. Within a few seasons that judgement had reversed entirely. What holds the opera together is its scale — four young people, one attic, one winter — and Puccini's ability to let conversation, laughter and grief share the same musical breath.