La Boheme is the opera that RENT is based on. It has many interesting similarities. The characters in La Boheme are: (click on the names to see the RENT equivalent)
Rudolfo: a struggling writer who burn his manuscripts for heat.
Marcello: a painter, roomate to Rodolfo.
Mimi: a seamstress who has tuberculosis. She and Rodolfo are in love.
Musetta: a woman who lives off of men. She used to be dating Marcello.
Schunard: a musician who played for a rich Englishman's parrot until it "mysteriously" died. He recieved quite a bit of cash for this job.
Benoit: landlord to Rodolfo and Marcello who cheats on his wife.
Alcindoro: Musetta's new flame. Left to pay her check but Musetta has gone off somewhere.
There are other similarities as well. RENT takes some of the more minor characters (such as Benoit), takes a certain trait of his (cheating), and makes it a large part of plot of RENT. In RENT, Benny cheats on his wife Allison- but it is with Mimi. Other similarities include the "Light My Candle" scene, which is completely like the one in La Boheme. It even ends with "They call me Mimi". A recurring motif that Roger keeps playing on his guitar is Musetta's Waltz from the original opera. Of course, there are quite a bit of differences as well. In La Boheme, Mimi is the only one who is sick, but in RENT, there are four main characters with AIDS (Roger, Mimi, Collins, and Angel).
There is a song at the end of the first act called "La Vie Boheme". While it seems to sound just like the opera's title, it really has nothing to do with it. I am only mentioning it here because I don't want to make a seperate page for it. It is a celebration of things taboo. Take, for example, this lyric:
"To Anarchy! Revolution, justice screaming for solutions
Risk and danger, forcing changes, making noise and making pleas
To faggots, lezzies, dykes, cross-dressers too
To me! To me! To you and you and you you and you
To people living with living with living with not dying from disease
Let he among us without sin be the first to condemn
La vie Boheme!"
And that's one of the more mellow lyrics.
