Overview

Giacomo Puccini's La Bohème is one of the most frequently performed operas in the world. But how did it come to be so adored? In this book, author Alexandra Wilson traces La Bohème's rise to fame and demonstrates that its success grew steadily through stage performances, recordings, filmed versions and the endorsements of star singers. More recently, popular songs, film soundtracks and musicals that draw on the opera's music and themes added further to its immense cultural impact.This cultural history offers a fresh reading of a familiar work. Wilson argues that La Bohème's approach to realism and its flouting of conventions of the Italian operatic tradition made it strikingly modern for the 1890s. She explores how Puccini and his librettists engaged with gender, urban poverty and nostalgia--themes that grew out of the work's own time and continue to resonate with audiences more than 120 years later. Her analysis of the opera's depiction of Paris reveals that La Bohème was not only influenced by the romantic mythologies surrounding the city to this day but also helped shape them. Wilson's consideration of how directors have reinvented this opera for a new age completes this fascinating history of La Bohème, making it essential reading for anyone interested in this opera and the works it inspired.

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9780190637880

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Reviews

Wilson is one of a few truly innovative Puccini scholars writing today. In this fascinating new book she explains how - against many odds and contrary to the expectations of early critics - La boheme became the work that still speaks to all of us, across generations and regardless of national, social and cultural boundaries. Her book is peppered with fascinating responses to Puccini's opera, from directors, critics and audiences. If we are to understand the success of Puccini's language, we have to look beyond conventional ideas of operatic italianita. Wilson's book shows us how to do this. * Axel Koerner, University College London * Wilson's exploration of La boheme takes the reader on a thoroughly fascinating journey, which starts from an approachable, jargon-free reading of the opera and its cultural context, and then travels from late nineteenth-century Paris, where the opera is set, through diverse times and places.Balancing admirably between documents and interpretation, and paying due attention to popular culture and conceptual staging, this book is a model in its kind, and will engage readers who are looking for an entry point into a beloved masterpiece as well as those who are already familiar with La boheme and in search of new insights and perspectives. * Francesco Izzo, Professor of Music University of Southampton and General Editor of The Works of Giuseppe Verdi *

Wilson's exploration of La boheme takes the reader on a thoroughly fascinating journey, which starts from an approachable, jargon-free reading of the opera and its cultural context, and then travels from late nineteenth-century Paris, where the opera is set, through diverse times and places.Balancing admirably between documents and interpretation, and paying due attention to popular culture and conceptual staging, this book is a model in its kind, and will engage readers who are looking for an entry point into a beloved masterpiece as well as those who are already familiar with La boheme and in search of new insights and perspectives. * Francesco Izzo, Professor of Music University of Southampton and General Editor of The Works of Giuseppe Verdi * Wilson is one of a few truly innovative Puccini scholars writing today. In this fascinating new book she explains how - against many odds and contrary to the expectations of early critics - La boheme became the work that still speaks to all of us, across generations and regardless of national, social and cultural boundaries. Her book is peppered with fascinating responses to Puccini's opera, from directors, critics and audiences. If we are to understand the success of Puccini's language, we have to look beyond conventional ideas of operatic italianita. Wilson's book shows us how to do this. * Axel Koerner, University College London *

Author Information

Alexandra Wilson is Professor of Music and Cultural History at Oxford Brookes University. Her research focuses on opera and operatic culture from the nineteenth century to the present. Her publications include the award-winning The Puccini Problem: Opera, Nationalism, and Modernity and a monograph on Opera in the Jazz Age: Cultural Politics in 1920s Britain (OUP, 2019), and she regularly works with the UK's leading opera companies.

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