In Tune

La Bohème in Pop Culture

“I love two things. I love you, and I love the opera.”

You can have your as-you-wishes and you-had-me-at-hellos. The above words, uttered by a hirsute, berobed, and utterly intoxicating Nicolas Cage in Moonstruck, make up the most romantic movie line of all time. So it’s fitting that the opera Ronny Cammareri (Cage) takes Loretta Castorini (Cher) to is arguably the most romantic opera of all time, Giacomo Puccini’s La Bohème.

La Bohème is such an impassioned opera—the love! the pain! the struggling artists!—that, when it appears in movies and TV shows, it often serves as a signifier of heightened emotion. That signifier status may sound like an easy crutch for filmmakers: Just squeeze some Bohème into the score, and watch the tears fly! But actually, many uses of Bohème on soundtracks are creative and memorable. Below are a few of them.

(One caveat: We’re skipping Rent, because the movie adaptation of Rent is not Rent. It’s to Rent what National Treasure Nicolas Cage is to Moonstruck Nicolas Cage. We’ll talk about Rent in a future article, on adaptations of La Bohème.)

Moonstruck

By far the most notable appearance of La Bohème in a movie occurs in Moonstruck. Throughout the movie, the opera accompanies Ronny and Loretta as they hate, hate-love, and (spoiler alert, but you know what’s coming) fall madly in love with each other. Bohème tiptoes into the score as Loretta emerges from a yellow cab and takes in the sight of, first, the illuminated Metropolitan Opera House and its bursting fountain and then—the music now swelling—Ronny, standing by the fountain in a tuxedo, waiting impatiently for the two loves of his life. Later, while they watch the Met’s production of La Bohème, Cher’s still face barely lets us see the emotions coursing through her as Mimi and Rodolfo decide to part ways. But she gives us just enough of a hint to let us know: She’s freaking out inside, swept away by all the new emotions that she had never anticipated. Opera will do that to you.

If you haven’t watched this movie, please. Do it. It is a perfect movie. It will bring out all those emotions that Puccini wrought, as well as the one sensation that isn’t La Bohème’s forte: belly laughs.

Mozart in the Jungle

This is a bit of a throw-away moment, but at the beginning of the sixth episode of season two of Mozart in the Jungle, Maestro Thomas Pembridge (Malcolm McDowell) emerges from an  airport completely oblivious to his new surroundings. He’s just arrived in Mexico from Europe, but he might as well be on Mars, for how much attention he’s paying to his surroundings. That’s because Thomas is blasting “Musetta’s Waltz” on his headphones. How could he focus on anything else? He finally snaps to attention when the daylight and traffic force him out of his Puccini-induced trance.

Boondock Saints

Like Maestro Pembridge, in Boondock Saints, Willem Dafoe’s FBI agent Paul Smecker shuts out the world with a quick Bohème escape, playing “Si, Mi Chiamano Mimi” on his Discman before starting to investigate a crime scene. As Smecker walks around dead bodies and studies every inch of the morbid scene, Mimi’s soaring voice guides the way. The joke, of course, is the contrast in gorgeous music and grim backdrop. Like the rest of the movie, it is very unsubtle.

The Simpsons

Homer Simpson’s talents run deep. In a 2007 episode of The Simpsons, Homer, while lying on his back at the hospital, finds out the cost of an X-ray and exclaims, “D’oh!” His signature utterance comes out surprisingly beautifully, with an operatic gravitas, although it only sounds that way when he’s on his back. Pretty soon, he’s playing Rodolfo at the Springfield Opera House. Kudos to the Springfield production’s director for finding a way to work around the star’s needs: “Must only sing when lying down” is inadvertently diva-like of Homer.

Catch OPERA San Antonio’s La Bohème at the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts in the H-E-B Performance Hall on May 17th and 19th. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit www.operasa.org or call the Box Office at (210) 223-8624.

Written by Grace Parazzoli