Even at this short distance of time it is something of a curiosity to read that the National Anthem was sung, under Signor Mancinelli's direction, at the beginning of the evening by the choristers grouped round a bust of the Queen.
The mere fact that _La Bohème_, Puccini's fourth work, to which he gave the plain title of opera, is his most popular composition for the stage, makes one all the more inclined to search more minutely for weaknesses. But with repeated performances (for it has passed into the regular repertory of all opera houses wherever it has been played) its unity, both as an idea and an expression, comes out more and more with remarkable distinctness.
[Illustration: MISS ALICE ESTY AS MIMI IN "LA BOHEME"]
It captured the Italian ear and taste immediately, and babies were christened Mimi and Rodolfo just as ten years before, Santuzza and Turiddu, culled from Mascagni's _Cavalleria Rusticana_, were favourite baptismal appellations. It did not take long for England--represented, in this instance, by the comparatively limited number of opera-lovers--to take it to its heart. It delighted fastidious France and even satisfied hypercritical and essentially conservative Germany. Of all Puccini's work, it exhibits perhaps the most spontaneity, and as a piece of modern music--if the melodies themselves, apart from their very definite piquancy and freshness, do not rise to any vast heights of emotional expression--its absolute continuity is certainly a very high artistic achievement and stands unquestionably as its most striking feature.
Illica and Giocosa provided the book, and their idea in providing the framework is clearly indicated by the prefatory note to the vocal score. They begin with a quotation from the preface to Murger's _Vie de Bohème_, of which the thoroughly impressionistic opera is a most spirited musical expression. _The Bohemians_, under which title the opera was first presented in England, does not express by any means the exact nature of the work. It is the spirit of Bohemianism--that curious almost undefinable quality, which in reality simply means the absolute living for, and in, the mood of the moment, and is not by any means the entire monopoly of the artistic temperament--that is portrayed by the dramatic scheme. In the matter of following Murger's story, which as a novel is the most free in the whole range of modern literature, the librettists have been careful to give the spirit rather than the letter. They even roll two characters, Francine and Mimi, into one; for they find that although in Murger's book characters of each person are clearly defined, one and the same temperament bears different names and is incarnated, so to speak, in two different persons. "Who cannot detect," they say, "in the delicate profile of one woman the personality both of Mimi and Francine? Who as he reads of Mimi's little hands, whiter than those of the Goddess of Ease, is not reminded of Francine's little muff?"