In Focus

FAUST
There is a well-known Christmas carol hidden in Méphistophélès’ first aria, “Le veau d’or”, often called the “Golden Calf aria”.

LA BOHÈME
Puccini’s friend, the composer Ruggero Leoncavallo, was working on his own opera, also based on Henri Murger's novel Scènes de la Vie de Bohème and also called La bohème. Puccini’s pursuit of the project cost him his friendship with Leoncavallo whose opera, completed one year after Puccini’s, is now almost never performed.

SALOME
In 1905, productions of Salome were banned in several cities worldwide including Chicago and New York due to some of its crude elements. Unsurprisingly, this had the opposite effect on audiences, making it a must-see opera across the world.

LA TRAVIATA
The inspiration for Verdi's Violetta was a real woman, Marie Duplessis, a famous Parisian courtesan who passed away just five years before La traviata opened in Venice. Alexandre Dumas, who wrote the original play the opera is based on, La Dame aux camélias, was one of her lovers.

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