Day 34: Bohèmeian Rhapsody

Hey everyone! Welcome to Day 34! Today is the all-Bohème all-day special!


Puccini: La bohème - February 3rd and 10th, 1946

"When we did Bohème, tears were coming down [Toscanini's] face; it wasn't put on: nobody saw it, just us. We singers…could see the man, and what the music meant to him."

Thus Jan Peerce, who sang Rodolfo in Toscanini's only surviving performance of La bohème, described the conductor's emotions upon his return to a much-beloved score he was returning to fifty years after bringing it into the world.

Toscanini conducted the world premiere of La bohème on February 1st, 1896, at Turin's Teatro Regio. Puccini was at first not pleased that the twenty-eight year-old Toscanini had been chosen by his publisher for this event - the composer's first choice had been Leopoldo Mugnone (who later did lead the world premiere of Tosca) - but was soon won over by the young conductor's intelligence and professionalism.

As La bohème has gone on to be one of the most beloved and frequently-performed operas in the entire repertory (currently ranked fourth in the world, according to Operabase) it is fascinating to see that it was initially quite poorly received by the critics. A theatrical agent by the name of Carlo D'Ormeville even telegraphed his associates in Milan "BOHEME FAILURE IT WON'T MAKE THE ROUNDS," which shows just how myopic agents can be when they try to tell the public what they should like. La bohème ended up being performed twenty-three times during its initial run, which was quite an impressive feat for its day (the length of an opera's run was never pre-determined in Italy at the time; ticket sales could either extend it indefinitely or tank it immediately).

Fifty years (almost to the day) after the world premiere of La bohème, Toscanini performed it once again, this time at the head of NBC Symphony, and backed by an internationally renowned cast of vocal soloists. As Toscanini's NBC broadcasts could not exceed one hour, the first two acts of the opera were performed on February 3rd, and acts III and IV occurred one week later. A fractionally delayed brass entrance in the final act raised terrifying ire in Toscanini, who summoned the players to his dressing room to bawl them out: "I hide my head in shame. After what happened tonight my life is finished. For me it is impossible to look in the face of anybody. But you [looking at the player at the head of the dejected line] you will sleep with your wife tonight as if nothing happened." Jan Peerce later reported that the faulty entrance was likely caused by Toscanini's beating a measure where he said he would not. For the RCA release, this section was replaced with the corresponding passage from the dress rehearsal.

Knowing how important this score was to Toscanini, one might think that he would respond to it in a very sentimental way, but if you look at the critical commentary this recording has received, the virtually unanimous view of this performance is that it is played entirely without sentimentalism. One Amazon reviewer even commented that "Puccini's bohemians have never been in such a hurry." In studying this recording I tried to listen for the asceticism I was under the impression it had been performed with, but I really hear nothing of the sort. To my ears this is the most passionate and musically satisfying recording I have yet heard of La bohème.

In comparing the timings of Toscanini's performance with other famous recordings the opera has received, it does appear to be the case that the tempi are somewhat brisker than the norm. Toscanini does not make the traditional excision of the chorus at the beginning of Act III, and yet his recording is nearly ten minutes shorter than the famous 1956 La Scala recording conducted by Antonino Votto that starred Maria Callas as Mimi. Yet Toscanini's performance moves me in a way the Votto performance does not. On re-listening to the latter recording, what struck me was the extent to which the phrases seem to sit in stasis. This may result in opportunities to display the beautiful voices of the singers, but to my ears this kept the musical line stuck in a rut, like a big meal that just sits in your stomach. That is not the case with Toscanini's performance, which emphasizes the music in ways most recordings do not. Puccini's phrases flow beautifully, and the effects are calculated to do utmost justice to the musical substance of the score, not the vocalizing. The surprising result is that the singers sound more wonderful in this recording than in any other I have ever heard; the cast is utterly outstanding (the matronly Anne McKnight's miscasting as Musetta being the only dark spot) and work collectively (not in competition) to produce the shattering climax of the death of Mimi, which all-too-often comes across as cartoonishly maudlin.

All in all this is one of the most outstanding of Toscanini's complete opera recordings. It is flexible, passionate, and dutiful towards the score in the most expressive of ways. This reading should probably not be construed as being a replica of the world premiere Toscanini had led fifty years earlier, as the staging requirements would inevitably have affected the musical pacing at that first performance. But this recording can go down as Toscanini's most loving reproduction of this beautiful work of art that was created by his friend Giacomo Puccini.

.........................................................................................................................................

That's it for Day 34!

Check back tomorrow for some Wagner, some more Wagner, and a little more Wagner.

Happy Tuesday!