A poor young poet is struggling to write in his attic apartment when he is interrupted by the sickly seamstress who lives downstairs.
Barely 15 minutes later, these two strangers are singing ecstatically about their love.
But when a performance of Giacomo Puccini’s “La Bohème” is working its hot magic, nothing could be more believable.
And nothing could be more essentially operatic than such a scene, with the emotions compressed and heightened through music.
Puccini, who died 100 years ago, on Nov. 29, 1924, proved himself again and again a master of moments like this: unleashing a Technicolor extravagance of feeling while at the same time conveying plain, simple truth.
Persons:
Giacomo Puccini’s “, Puccini