The Characters:
Rodolfo and Marcello sit in their attic apartment on Christmas Eve. Marcello paints a work he's entitled "The Passage of the Red Sea" while Rodolfo looks pensively out the window. Marcello complains of the cold and their lack of firewood. As he prepares to throw a chair into the stove, Rodolfo rushes to the table, offering to burn his bulky manuscript instead. Together they set fire to the paper, put it in the stove, and draw their chairs to the fire, happily warming themselves.
Colline enters, having tried unsuccessfully to pawn his philosophy books. The three continue to burn Rofolfo's manuscript, regarding the fire as a theatrical performance of the work, and applauding as it dies.
Two boys enter, bringing food, wine, cigars, and a bundle of wood. The three men fall upon the provisions with a cry of delight as the boys leave. Shaunard enters, throwing some coins on the ground, and explaining how he has come across such riches: an English nobleman has paid him to play until his caged parrot died of terror. After three days, Shaunard explains, he managed to seduce the nobleman's servant girl and kill the parrot with a piece of poisoned parsley. As his three companions feast, Shaunard reproaches them for eating food at home when in the Latin Quarter sweetmeats await them in brightly lit cafes where maidens await student lovers.
Benoit, the landlord enters, demanding rent. The four friends seat the landlord and proceed to get him drunk on glass after glass of wine, enticing him with the promise of Shaunard's coins. They gibe the inebriated Benoit into recounting his seduction of a lovely woman, and then trick him into admitting that he is married. Feigning disgust, the four friends demand Benoit leave their abode, ushering him out the door while wishing him a pleasant Christmas.
Shaunard, Marcello and Colline leave for Chez Momus, after dividing the money, while Rodolfo stays behind to finish an article for his newspaper, "The Beaver," promising to meet up soon.
Soon, there is a knock at the door. Mimi, the lovely seamstress neighbor, stands in the portal; she asks Rodolfo to light her candle. Entering upon Rodolfo's invitation, Mimi is seized by a fit of coughing and faints, dropping her candlestick and key. Reviving her with some water, wine, and the warmth of the fire, Rodolfo is reluctant to let her leave, having fallen in love. Realizing she has forgotten her key, Mimi pauses in the door, her candle again going out. Rodolfo's candle, too, goes out, and the two are left in complete darkness, searching the floor for the key.
Outside, Shaunard, Marcello and Colline call to Rodolfo to hurry. He tells them he will join them at Chez Momus shortly. Rodolfo then confesses his love for Mimi in song, and tries to kiss her. Disengaging herself, Mimi turns to leave, then asks if she may join the friends at Chez Momus. Rodolfo agrees, and Mimi admits her love for him.
In the Latin Quarter, outside Chez Momus, peddlers hawk their various merchandise: oranges, roasted chestnuts, chocolate, meat and fish. The scene is an uproar of movement. Shaunard buys a pipe and a horn from a tinker while Colline buys a coat; Rodolfo and Mimi go to the milliner's to buy a bonnet; and Marcello is hustled hither and thither, ogling the girls who pass by. The two lovers join Rodolfo's friends, who have decided to dine outdoors in order to avoid the crowd inside. Mimi is introduced to the others as Parpignol enters the scene, advertising his barrow full of toys. Parpignol is quickly surrounded by a crowd of boys and girls who ogle his toys. The children's mothers soon relent and buy the toys, to the delight of the children who follow Parpignol on the Rue Vielle Comedie, banging their new drums and blowing their new trumpets.
Meanwhile, the five friends have been ordering their meal. Mimi shows off her new bonnet. Marcello, however, soon loses his cheer as Mimi unwittingly reminds him of his lost love, Musetta, who herself enters the scene a few moments later, followed by Alcindoro, her pompous old gentleman lover. Seating herself at an adjacent table, Musetta becomes upset when she sees that Marcello is paying her no mind. Actually, Marcello is clearly quite upset and only feigning indifference, evident in his song to Mimi recounting his history with the lovely Musetta. Alcindoro chastises Musetta for what he considers her embarrassing behavior-she has become more irritated that Marcello is ignoring her-when she breaks a plate on purpose. She responds that she will do as she pleases, and stands, singing a song in praise of her own beauty. Mimi, noticing Musetta's adoration for Marcello, tells Rodolfo that she feels pity for the woman, for "love that's born of passion ends in despair!" Musetta, meanwhile, pretends that her shoes are paining her, and sends Alcindoro off to buy new ones. As soon as the old man is out of sight, Marcello and Musetta embrace fervently. Finally, the friends, discovering they have spent all their money, leave the bill to be paid by Alcindoro on his return. The act closes with the entire crowd singing the praises of a military band that passes through, while Marcello and Colline carry Musetta aloft and Mimi and Rodolfo walk behind arm in arm.
It is now February. The act opens at The Barriere d'Enfer, where a toll gate stands in front a tavern. Marcello's painting of "The Passage of the Red Sea" hangs on the tavern's sign-board. At the gate sit a group of sleeping custom-house officers, who are joined by a colleague who brings wine from the tavern. From inside the tavern come sounds of laughter, shouts, and glasses clinking together.
As milk- and peasant-woman pass through the gate, offering their produce, Mimi enters. After a violent coughing fit, she approaches the tavern, where she asks a serving-woman to fetch Marcello-she urgently needs to speak to him.
Marcello, coming out of the tavern, is amazed to see her. He explains that he and Musetta have been lodging at the tavern for a month; Musetta has been teaching singing while he paints for the tavern. Rodolfo, he explains, is inside. Mimi sings to Marcello, explaining that Rodolfo has proven a jealous lover, and that the time has come for them to part. Will Marcello help her? When he agrees, she is again shaken by a fit of coughing, upon which Marcello remarks upon. Mimi explains, "unceasingly it shakes me." Marcello tells Mimi to go home, and leads her away, but she instead hides behind a plane-tree, listening to the conversation that ensues between Marcello and Rodolfo as the latter enters the scene.
Rodolfo, too, seeks Marcello's help in dissolving the relationship. Marcello tells Rodolfo that he has been too jealous, impatient, and stubborn, while Rodolfo counters that Mimi is "fickle-hearted" and a flirt. Marcello tells him that he is being insincere, and Marcello admits that he is hiding from the pain that he feels, knowing that Mimi is dying. Marcello is astounded by the news, as is Mimi herself, who begins to weep, which, combined with her coughing, give her away. Rodolfo, discovers her, and they embrace.
Musetta's laugh is heard from inside, and Marcello, suddenly furious, rushes inside to punish her for flirting.
Mimi disengages from Rodolfo's embrace, and bids him farewell, singing that she shall come back for her things, but might he keep her bonnet as a remembrance of their love? They sing a duet of the loneliness in winter that will be expunged by springtime's sun.
Marcello's and Musetta's voices, meanwhile, comes from within the tavern, along with the sound of breaking glasses and plates. They bicker over whether Musetta was flirting with a stranger. As Rodolfo and Mimi leave the stage singing of renewed, if temporary, love, Marcello and Musetta spit epithets at each other and dissolve their relationship.
Back in the attic of the first act, Marcello again stands at his easel while Rodolfo sits at the writing table. We join the conversation half-way through: Rodolfo is telling Marcello how he has recently seen Musetta, gaily attired, in a sumptuous carriage. Marcello counters that he has seen Mimi out in a carriage of her own, also richly attired. Both feign disinterest, yet each knows how the other must feel. Finally caving in to their emotions and giving up on their work, each man sings to his own keepsake of the failed relationships: Rodolfo to Mimi's bonnet, Marcello to a bunch of ribbons Musetta once wore. Shaunard and Colline then enter, bringing supper: four rolls and a herring. The friends sit down to a meager dinner they pretend is a fine banquet. After eating, Shaunard suggests a dance, and they clear the tables and chairs. The situation quickly commences to a mock duel between Shaunard and Colline, as Rodolfo and Marcello dance together.
Suddenly, Musetta enters, clearly upset. She has brought Mimi, who is so sick she cannot climb the stairs. Mimi is carried upstairs and put to bed. Musetta recounts how, hearing that Mimi had fled her rich lover and was close to death, she searched for her, finding her just a few moments before. Mimi, Musetta says, asked to die near Rodolfo, and so they have come to the attic.
Finding that the four men have no money, she removes her earrings and tells Marcello to sell them and buy something to drink and to send for a doctor. They both leave. Colline, meanwhile, removes his coat, also intending to sell it in order to help the dying Mimi, and leaves with Shaunard. Mimi then sings to Rodolfo a song of love, and they reminisce on their first meeting. Shaunard, Musetta, and Marcello return with the medicine and a muff for Mimi's cold hands. Before the doctor arrives, however, Mimi succumbs to her illness. Rodolfo throws himself on the band, and stroking her hand cries out her name in anguish. Main Page
