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La Bohème
 Photo by Stas Levshin and Nikolay Krusser
The production has been nominated for the Golden Mask National Theatre Awards’
2010-2011 in eight categories:
– Best Opera Production,
– Best Conductor (Peter Feranec, Music Director and
   Principal Conductor of the Mikhailovsky Theatre),
– Best Stage Director (Arnaud Bernard),
– Best Stage Designer in Music Theatre (Arnaud Bernard),
– Best Costume Designer in Music Theatre (Carla Ricotti),
– Best Light Designer in Music Theatre(Arnaud Bernard),
– Best Female Opera Role (Olga Tolkmit for the role of
   Mimi),
– Best Male Opera Role (Boris Pinkhasovich for the role of
   Marcello).



La Bohème        


opera in four acts
Music: Giacomo Puccini
Libretto: Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger

Conductor: Peter Feranec
Stage Director, Stage and Lighting Designer: Arnaud Bernard

Principal Chorus Master: Vladimir Stolpovskikh
Costume Designer: Carla Ricotti
Costume Production Engineer: Alla Marusina
Directors: Yulia Prokhorova, Margarita Kunitsyna-Tankevich
Chorus Masters: Alexey Dmitriyev, Sergey Tsyplyonkov
Principal Pianists: Natalia Dudik, Marc Vainer
Stage Director’s Assistant: Vyacheslav Kalyuzhny
Costume Designer Assistant: Irina Talova
Artistic and technological visual solutions of the production were developed by the stage technologies studio ‘Show Consulting’, St. Petersburg
Stage Design: Dmitry Balashyov
Lighting Plot: Gidal Shugaev

Premiere of the production: May 11, 2011

Running time: 3 hours
Performance has two intervals
Performed in Italian (the performance will have synchronised Russian supertitles)


There are few productions in the world of opera that could compete with this lyrical drama. It is not pretentious, convoluted or emotional — here, the art of opera and the real world collide. It was not by chance that Puccini turned to the only book by Murger that survived its author: The composer knew the protagonists very well: at times, during his studies at the Milan Conservatory, he too had to go without food, just like them. Later, at the time of success and financial independence, he was a centre of the crowd of artists, painters and writers, nicknamed on his initiative ‘The Bohemian Club.’

The composer conceived the idea of the opera in 1893. The opera was created to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica (1853-1919) and Giuseppe Giacosa (1847-1906), yet it was Puccini who shaped the plan and sketched the characters of the protagonists, who differ from those in the original. Puccini was absorbed by the opera and started composing it in 1894, when the libretto wasn’t ready yet.

Puccini wrote his opera La bohème contemporaneously with Leoncavallo’s own treatment of the same story. The rivalry ended in a quarrel. By the end of 1985 Puccini’s La bohème was ready and received its première on 1 February 1896 in Turin.

Playbill   Synopsis