The Chick Opera

A friend once told me that the Puccini opera La Bohème is a chick opera. It made me laugh when he said it, but I suppose it is true. So if you like chick flicks, why not attend this Saturday’s Metropolitan Opera live broadcast of La Bohème at a movie theater near you? It is an easy opera, as they go, approachable and very melodic; a very good first opera, if you’ve not been before. (Hey, remember the movie Moonstruck, with Cher and what’s his name? Remember when he took her to the opera? They went to the Met and saw La Bohème. And you remember what happened after that. So.)

Here’s a taste. This is from the first act, when the struggling seamstress named Mimi, ailing and pale, and the muy romantico Rodolpho (sung here by the great tenor Jose Carreras) first meet in his Parisian loft amid all its Bohemian splendor. And what do you suppose happens when they first meet? They fall in love, of course, as is made known by Rodolpho in this gorgeous aria “Che gelida manina” (translation: What a cold, little hand).

Sniff, sniff.