Poverty and passion collide in Puccini’s operatic masterpiece, La bohème, performed at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Show more. 1 hour, 59 minutes. In the first of a new series on our writers’ operatic passions, Sam Smith explains why Puccini’s 1896 opera never fails to entrance. Set in 1830s Paris, Puccini’s La bohème of 1896 focuses on six young adults and the love that four of them find with each other amidst the most impoverished of circumstances. It is an opera that never fails 3dI6.

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