La bohème

…freshness, youth, passion, cheerfulness, tears shed in silence, a love that gives you joy and makes you suffer, Puccini wrote about the perfect theme for an opera which he had found in Murger’s novel Scènes de la vie de bohème, which he himself could relate to through his own experience of several years spent as a student and artist at Milan’s conservatory. The duo of Giacosa and Illica magically turned the material into a superb libretto, not without some intervention of the composer himself. The latter endowed the tale of the Parisian bohemian life with a melodious phrase congenial with the situation, proving himself a master in building up the mood, inciting yearnings, and moving the audience. The residents of a poor garret are about to abandon their artsy spaces and walk into a life ruled by different laws. For now, however, they are experiencing their first loves, and the first complications that come with them, as well as the first misfortunes in their lives, including death, which forebodes the end of their beautiful amusements, the end of carefree times, and thus a goodbye to youth.

libretto: Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Henri Murger’s novel Scènes de la vie de bohème

musical director: Tomasz Tokarczyk set and costume designer: Barbara Kędzierska chorus master: Zygmunt Magiera lighting designer: Bogumił Palewicz children’s choirmaster: Marek Kluza director’s assistant: Agnieszka Sztencel, Bożena Walczyk-Skrzypczak music director’s assistant: Paweł Szczepański set and costume designer’s assistant: Izabela Firek chorus master’s assistant: Joanna Wójtowicz stage managers: Justyna Jarocka-Lejzak, Magdalena Wąsowska prompters: Krystyna Behounek, Dorota Sawka soloists’ coaches: Kristina Kutnik, Olga Tsymbaluk, Grzegorz Brajner chorus accompanist: Wioletta Fluda translation of displayed libretto: Dorota Sawka

The show is presented in its original Italian with Polish surtitles.