afe, leaving Rodolphe to
finish an article. To him enters Mimi, an embroiderer, who lodges on the
same floor, under pretence of asking for a light. A delicious love-duet
follows, and the lovers go off to join their friends. The next scene is
at the Cafe Momus, where Musette appears with a wealthy banker. She
speedily contrives to get the banker out of the way and rushes into the
arms of her old lover, Marcel. This scene, which is very short, is a
carnival of bustle and gaiety, and is a brilliant example of Puccini's
happy knack of handling concerted music. The next scene is a series of
quarrels and reconciliations between the two pairs of lovers, while in
the last act Mimi, who has deserted Rodolphe, comes back to see him once
more before she dies, and breathes her last on the little bed in the
attic. Puccini's music echoes the spirit of Murger's romance with
marvellous sincerity. It paints the mingled joy and grief of Bohemian
life in hues the most delicate and tender. Like Murger, though dealing
with things often squalid and unlovely, he never forgets that he is an
artist. The sordid facts of life are gilded by the rainbow colours of
romance. Puccini has caught the fanciful grace of Murger's style with
the dexterity of genius. His music is thoroughly Italian in style, but
he never strikes a false note. He dashes off the irresponsible gaiety of
the earlier scenes with a touch which though light is always sure, and
when the action deepens to tenderness, and even to pathos, he can be
serious without falling into sentimentality and impressive without
encroaching upon the boundaries of melodrama. 'La Boheme' is one of the
few operas of recent years which can be described as a masterpiece.

With 'La Tosca,' which was produced in 1899, Puccini won another
success, though for very different reasons from those which made 'La
Boheme' so conspicuous a triumph. The libretto is a clever condensation
of Sardou's famous drama. The scene is laid in Rome in the year 1800. In
the first act we are introduced to Mario Cavaradossi, a painter, who is
at work in a church, and to Flora Tosca, his mistress, a famous singer,
who pays him a visit and teases him with her jealous reproaches.
Cavaradossi befriends Angelotti, a victim of Papal tyranny, who has
escaped from the castle of St Angelo, and despatches him by a secret
path to his villa in the outskirts of Rome. Scarpia, the chief of
police, who is close upon Angelotti's heels, suspects Cav