Opera on 3: Puccini's La bohème

Original version

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Opera on 3

Music: Classical: Opera

Programme presenting rare and fascinating operatic performances

Programme presenting rare and fascinating performances and vividly communicating the immediacy of the live experience

Puccini's La bohème

BBC Radio 3 - Opera on 3, Puccini's La bohème

Puccini's classic opera of joys and sorrows, love and loss, from the New York Met.

Recorded at the Met, Maria Agresta and Charles Castronovo are the ill-fated, poverty-stricken lovers Mimì and Rodolfo in Puccini's ever-popular, heartstring-tugging opera.

They call her Mimì and in her badly insulated garret her tiny hand is frozen. But it's not long before it (and Mimì) is clasped in the warm embrace of neighbour Rodolfo. As the pretty seamstress and unsuccessful poet fall in love, an ominous cough prefigures an unhappy ending...

This is the 40th anniversary of Franco Zeffirelli's cinematic New York Met production of Puccini's classic tale of joys and sorrows, love and loss among the impoverished arty set of 1830s Paris.  Maria Agresta and Charles Castronovo are the ill-fated lovers and Gabriella Reyes and Lucas Meachem play their friends Musetta and Marcello, who persistently fall in and out of love.

Introduced by Debra Lew Harder in conversation with Ira Siff.

Act 1

7.15 pm
Interval 1
Including features, backstage interviews and more.

7.25 pm
Act2

7.40 pm
Interval 2
More from behind the scenes.

8.05 pm
Act 3

8.30 pm
Interval 3
Including the famous Met Quiz with special guest Joseph Calleja.

9.00 pm
Act 4

Mimì ……. Maria Agresta (soprano)
Musetta ……. Gabriella Reyes (soprano)
Rodolfo ……. Charles Castronovo (tenor)
Marcello ……. Lucas Meachem (baritone)
Schaunard ……. Alexander Birch Elliott (baritone)
Colline ……. Peter Kellner (bass)
Benoit/Alcindoro ……. Donald Maxwell (baritone)
Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus
Carlo Rizzi (conductor)

Image: © Evan Zimmerman / Met Opera

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