La bohème, Sydney Opera House, December 31, 2016

by Tony Magee

In December 2016, my friend Elizabeth St Clare Long and I travelled to Sydney for a New Year’s Eve performance of Puccini’s opera La bohème, (composed between 1893 and 1895).

Elizabeth and I in our seats at the Sydney Opera House, NYE 2016. An Opera Australia production.

The Italian libretto is by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on “Scènes de la vie de bohème” (1851) by Henri Murger. 

The story is set in Paris around 1830 and shows the Bohemian lifestyle (known in French as "la bohème") of a poor seamstress and her artist friends.

Produced by Opera Australia and directed by Gale Edwards, she changed the setting from 1830’s Paris to 1930s Berlin, the end of the era of Weimar cabaret and a sense of artistic, sexual, and personal liberation for a short time.

 Canberra soprano (now Sydney based) Lorina Gore as Musetta in 2014. Photo by Branco Gaica

The production received critical acclaim. 

Cassie Tongue, writing for AussieTheatre.com, summarised Opera Australia's 2014 production thus: “It’s a simple story, but it’s so easy to fall into its spell and grow attached to it. With showstoppers and slow-building emotion, this La bohème is a gem of a production”.

I've been a patient in Hyson Green mental health facility at Calvary hospital in Canberra for the last three weeks and am due for discharge today (January 16, 2023). Yay!

One of the patients, a guy named Wayne is an amatuer artist and drew a picture of me reclining on a couch.

The original photo (also shown) was taken at the Royal Automobile Club in Macquarie Street, Sydney, after the performance, where Elizabeth and I stayed. Elizabeth took the photo.

Just two little stories, set eight years apart, which I wanted to share with my readers.