My question concerns Mimi in Puccini's La bohème. I have been wondering how old the seamstress Mimi is? I've always assumed she was the the same age as Rodolfo and his young bohemians living in the Latin Quarter of Paris in the 1840s but maybe I'm wrong?
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Last edited by Stanfordian; 09-08-16, 16:22. -
I think Murger says that all the Bohemians (male and female) are between 20 and 30. So I think your assumption is right.Originally posted by Stanfordian View Post -
They didn't live very long.Comment
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Ernest Newman (More Opera Nights, 1954) tells me that whereas the male characters in the opera are based more or less on Murger's real-life characters, Mimi and Musetta are composites. The real-life Colline and Schaunard also had girlfriends, but Puccini and his librettists clearly felt "that they had enough love interest on their hands already with the Rodolfo-Mimi Marcello-Musetta pairs". Murger's Schaunard used to correct his girlfriend Phémie with a cane, which he presented to her when he dismissed her as a souvenir of his affection.Originally posted by makropulos View PostComment
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The original story indicates Rodolfo as 24 and Mimi as 22 when they first met.Originally posted by Stanfordian View PostComment
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Thanks everyone. All interesting and helpful posts.Last edited by Stanfordian; 10-08-16, 14:53.Comment
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... Mimi as a seamstress was perhaps not really a bohémienne. Her future were she to have had one wd probably have been as a lorette, grisette, cocotte, or grue.
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Why?Comment
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... o, probably a mis-spent youth reading too much Balzac.Originally posted by Zucchini View PostComment
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