Scènes de la vie de bohème - Henry Murger

Henry Murger’s original 1851 novel, which was to be the basis for operas by Leoncavallo and, more famously by Puccini, is rather different in form and content from the focus of the opera (in Puccini at least) on the relationship between Rodolfo and Mimi. The four bohemians are indeed all there however; Rodolphe, Schaunard, Colline and Marcel, four starving artists, a poet, a musician, a philosopher and a painter, who come to share accommodation, gather for drinks at the Café Momus, help each other out when necessary and encourage each other in appreciation of their respective talents, confident that their artistry will be eventually reach its public and be handsomely rewarded.

The playful attempts of these four men to entertain each other while struggling to make enough money to survive and eat in the meantime, indulging the occasional extravagance that is beyond their means only make it through to Puccini’s opera as colourful background scenes, but they are the main focus of Murger’s novel, or at least the larger part of it. Not so much a novel as a collection of incidents and adventures featuring a recurring cast, there is however a running narrative of sorts that connects them together, (Tama Janowitz’s Slaves of New York can be seen to have been a modern-day updating of the style and content of Scènes de la vie de bohème) and that mildly irreverent tone of chaotic aspiring artist’s lives that is captured in the opera is certainly evident throughout here.

While there are plenty of incidents, schemes and carousing to entertain in the adventures of the bohemian artists of Paris, it’s the celebrated story of the insecure, jealous, tormented poet Rodolphe and turbulent affairs with the beautiful but unfaithful gold-digging Mimi and the equally tragic story of Francine and Jacques that are just as central to the novel as they are (the two combined into one) in Puccini’s opera. Murger describes the intense joy and tragedy of these troubled relationships though some beautiful poetic prose portraits and a depiction of the consequences of poverty that is a little less idealised than Puccini and Illica’s vision - with Mimi's death in destitution arguably being even more tragic here - but certainly no less passionately romantic and emotionally moving.