La Boheme

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La Boheme

Music affects our emotions and has much to do with our everyday lives. Music has always and will be a part of my life. I would have to say that without music there is no life -- something is missing in our lives without music. If there were no music society we would only have people speaking to each other, and there would be no entertainment. The form of musical entertainment that I attended was the opera, La Boheme, composed by Giacommo Puccini and Libretto by Giuseppe and Luigi Illica. The opera took place at The New City Opera on November 10, 2001. La Boheme takes place in 1830, 19th century Paris around Christmas time. This opera tells the tragic love story of a young Bohemian, Rodolfo, who finds a love interest in his neighbor, Mimi. The opera consists of an extremely talented cast with the accompaniment of an amazing orchestra.

The orchestra was well amplified throughout the Lincoln Center Opera House because it was clearly heard from our upper mezzanine seating. Sunken down below in front of the stage is where I found the opera orchestra. The opera orchestra, which is quite similar to a full symphony orchestra, was starting to warm-up as I entered the "jewelry box". In the orchestra pit I found aerophones, which included, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns, trumpets, trombones, as well as a flute, piccolo, english horn, bass clarinet, contrabassoon, bass trombone, and a tuba; chordophones, which included the first and second violins, violas, cellos, and a harp; membranophones were made up of the percussion and a timpani. The dynamics range from piano to extreme fortissimo throughout the four act opera. This helped the audience grasp the feelings and emotion that the characters were trying to displ...

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...more on the dramatic qualities expressed in the libretto Puccino created something unique and more acceptable.

All in all I thoroughly enjoyed Puccini's La Boheme. After watching this opera I became much more familiar with The New City Opera and the Lincoln Center Opera House. I not only learned much more about opera itself; I also was able to discover a new personal musical liking. I have a found a new love interest in the opera. It is true to say that music has a large emotional effect on one's self. After exiting the opera I was in a completely different mind set than I was upon entering. Even though I had just sat through a tragic love story, I was smiling. I was smiling because as a result of my reaction to the opera, I realized that music does indeed have a huge effect on our personal life no matter what way you look at it, and this makes me happy.

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