Poetry, Flowers, and Other Beautiful Things

Let thought burst into flame...

Two nights ago we saw an extraordinary performance of La Boheme at the Metropolitan Opera. The production was glorious, the singing was beautiful, and the acting was entirely committed.

Because this was not the first time I saw this story of early nineteenth-century artists living in Parisian attics, I noticed things that I would not have previously.

At the beginning of the play, the artist Marcello is painting, and the poet Rodolfo is shivering. The scene unfolds as an interplay of the materiality of the painting and manuscripts, and the reality of the images they represent. Marcello sings

This Red Sea passage
makes me shiver,
I feel as if it were flowing right over me
droplet by droplet.

The image he is painting is so real that Marcello feels what he is painting. Materialization links the artist with the scene.

This interplay between things and the things that represent them continues as, inspired, the pair feed his manuscript to the flames of the stove in their garret:

Let thought burst into flame...
the paper will crackle and turn to ashes,
then the poetry will rise to Heaven...
I find it really sparkling!...
Within that languid blue flickering
flame, an ardent tale of love fades!
A page crackles.
There are kisses in there!

The play burns, and the poetry sparkles, kisses crackle, the emotions become things-- active, moving, burning ardently...

Once my attention was caught by the place things play in this opera, by the interplay of poetry and things, it became impossible to ignore.

Specific items of clothing play active roles, they act independently of the intentions of the humans they connect in a network of humans and non-humans: the bonnet that Rodolfo buys for Mimi, which she leaves him as a memento when they part; the shoes that Musetta claims are too tight to wear, so that she can rid herself of her rich patron and reclaim Marcello; the fur muff Musetta buys to warm the hands of the dying Mimi; and most of all, the overcoat that Colline sells to buy comforts for Mimi.

There is a particular interplay between the images of poetry and flowers that links and yet divides Rodolfo, the poet, and Mimi, the young woman he loves. Rodolfo introduces himself to Mimi, describing what he does:

In my dreams and reveries,
I build castles in the air,
where in spirit I am a millionaire...

Mimi, in turn, describes her own work, echoing the interplay between the materiality of the canvas and paper that Marcello and Rodolfo discussed burning, and their service as media to represent things of beauty:

On linen and silk I embroider,
at my home or away...
I have a quiet, but happy life,
and my pastime
is making lilies and roses....
These things have such sweet charm,
they speak of love, of Spring,
of dreams and visions and
the things that have poetic names.

Mimi is more aware of the difference between the flowers she embroiders and those that bloom in April than Rodolfo comprehends the distance between his dramatic scenes and real life:

In a vase a Rosebud blooms,
I watch as petal by petal unfolds,
with its delicate fragrance of a flower!
But the flowers that I sew,
alas, have no fragrance.

The events that unfold between them will, however, teach Rodolfo what Mimi already knows.

In the second act, things establish the scene:

Oranges, dates, hot chestnuts!
Trinkets, crosses, nougat!
Whipped cream!
Toffees!
Fruit pies!
Finches, Sparrows!
Flowers for pretty girls!

Flowers for pretty girls... flowers like the ones that Mimi embroiders. But what Mimi asks for, and Rodolfo buys her, is not the flower, but one of the items of clothing that circulate through the opera as extensions of the characters:

A pink bonnet, trimmed
with lace, and prettily embroidered.

Embroidered with what? we are not told. But with Mimi's description of her work so recently echoing, and the vendor's repeated cry of "Flowers for pretty girls", I imagine the bonnet embroidered with spring flowers.

When, in Act Three, Mimi resolves to leave Rodolfo to spare him the pain he feels about their poverty endangering her health, she says she

must return
there all alone, to make
imitation flowers of silk.

She describes to Rodolfo where her few possessions are, and leaves the pink bonnet as the remembrance of their love. In a long exchange, interrupted by the arguing of their friends Marcello and Musetta, Rodolfo says

One can speak with Lilies and roses.

Mimi answers

Gentle twittering can be
heard from birds' nests...

And together they sing,

When the flowers bloom in Spring,
we'll have the sun as our companion!...
We'll part when it's the
season for flowers again!

Poetry and embroidered flowers compete here, each a visualization of beauty. But it is the items of clothing that take on active roles in the final act. Rodolfo speaks to the bonnet which is all that remains of his lost Mimi:

And you, soft bonnet,
that she left concealed under the pillow,
you know all our happiness.

The bonnet is invested with a capacity to know, to actively remember.

Also reintroduced is the overcoat worn by Colline, the prime example of an object invested with agency in this opera. We first meet the overcoat in Act Two, as Colline buys it:

It's rather worn...
...but it's dignified and it's a good price.

It returns at the end of the opera, when Colline determines to sell it for the benefit of Mimi:

Faithful old garment, listen,
I'll rest down here,
you however, must climb
the sacred mount of piety.
My thanks you must receive.
Never has your poor worn back
bowed before the rich and powerful.
Deep in your calm cavernous pockets,
you have protected
philosophers and poets.
Now that our happy days
have fled, I must bid you farewell,
faithful friend of mine.
Farewell, farewell.

This faithful friend takes one last action, leaving Colline, the philosopher, to produce funds for Mimi.

Once I began to watch what things did in this opera, if became a different play for me: one where art doesn't just imitate reality, it invokes blooming flowers; where clothing, instead of passively submitting to people, remembers, protects, and takes on the burdens of the people it lives among.