Scènes de la vie de bohème is an intimate dramatic adaptation of Giacomo Puccini’s classic opera. Reduced to the four principal roles, this new version is designed to focus on the emotional ties between the two couples.
It debuted in April 2024 in a run of special performances on Hong Kong’s iconic Star Ferry in a new production developed for The Peninsula Hong Kong and Dante Alighieri Society to commemorate the Puccini centenary.
The production, adapted by Peter Gordon and with a new musical arrangement by Marco Iannelli, keeps all the major music, arias and ensembles as well as the original, beloved story line, by moving Musetta’s Act II music to Scene 1 and reassigning some lines. The Star Ferry performances were reset in contemporary Hong Kong. It runs approximately 60 minutes.
The performances featured Etta Fung as Mimì, Ashley Chui as Musetta, Chen Yong as Rodolfo and Isaac Droscha as Marcello, with Hsu Wei-en on piano.
The production was re-imagined in a staged version at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University on the eve of Puccini’s centenary, as part of the “Italia on Stage” festival. This version aims to capture the origins of the novel in the semi-autobiographical novel Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger.
Scene 1 opens with the writer Murger witnessing a death in hospital (as Mimì does in the original book), and then sitting down to write, stepping into the scene as Rodolfo. Scene 2 also open with Murger writing and again stepping into the scene for Rodolfo’s entrance.
