When Giacomo Puccini read Henri Murger’s work Les scènes de la vie de bohème in 1893, he was immediately taken with the freshness, youth, passion, cheerfulness and love with all its joys and sufferings. Puccini (1858-1924) immediately recognized the ideal material for an opera. The libretto was written by Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica, who had already worked successfully with the composer for Manon Lescaut.
Puccini worked out the depth of the characters in detail in his Bohème: Important moments were meticulously composed and text and music form an incomparable unity. Puccini completely attuned the themes to the action, in which lyrical-sentimental parts contrast excellently with humorous, lively parts. Since he was a genius at writing precisely for the human voice, his operas, above all "La Bohème", were a great success because of their incomparably beautiful melodies. Famous arias like "Che gelida manina" or "Sì. Mi chiamano Mimì" can also be found on opera samplers due to the intensity of the transported feelings or are a fixed component of concert evenings.
The stage-effective piece, first performed in Turin in 1896, with its impressionistic features around the poet Rodolfo and his beloved Mimì, who cannot escape poverty and misery in their Parisian attic, still brings tears of emotion to the eyes of the audience today. Puccini’s masterpiece is certainly one of the most original and magical operas ever written.

"Macbeth" is Giuseppe Verdi’s (1813-1901) second of seven literary operas and is based on the drama of the same name by William Shakespeare. The premiere took place in 1847 at the Teatro alla Pergola in Florence, and revised versions were staged for the first time several years later in St. Petersburg and Paris.
The creation of "Macbeth" falls into the late period of bel canto; Verdi dissolves the firmly established schemes in the singing and in this opera puts all his wealth of ideas into the focus of the orchestration, which was to become a signpost for his further compositions. The work was very well received on the whole, even if the lack of a love scene was criticized - in fact, "Macbeth" is one of the few operas whose plot is determined by greed for power and its resulting consequences.
In 11th century Scotland, witches prophesy a future as king for the general Macbeth, which he acquires in a bloody manner. He is fired by his power-hungry wife, Lady Macbeth, whose character Verdi allows much greater room for maneuver than is the case in Shakespeare’s original. Macbeth’s tragic end concludes this opera rich in dramatic scenes.
After several decades of oblivion, "Macbeth" is now part of the traditional Verdi repertoire and is performed on all the major stages.