Did Puccini really set La bohème in the Latin Quarter?
Maybe. The libretto offers clues that his setting could be based on his recollections of Lucca, Italy, where he had spent his student days: The crowd greets each other in Act III saying, “Where are you going?” “To San Michele”—San Michele is a square in Lucca. The café scene in Act II, with vendors hawking their wares, is typical of Lucca. Some of the phrases sung in the opera are in the Lucca dialect, including the milkmaids’ cry of “Hopplà!” at the beginning of Act III. Does the painting “The Crossing of the Red Sea” have significance? Yes. This is a reference to one of Murger’s original short stories, wherein Marcello annually repaints and renames this work for submission to the Louvre, and each year it is duly rejected. Ironically, when he finally sells the painting to a private collector, it is renamed “At the Port of Marseilles” without his knowledge, and it receives rave reviews. La bohème uses the painting as connection to Murger. In the first act, we see the painting as a work
