A masterpiece generating “a dangerous fascination, a spine-tingling and blissful infinity” – thus Friedrich Nietzsche characterised Richard Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde.

The Paris-based painter and writer Henry Murger’s book Scenes de la vie de boheme, published in 1851, was a great success and Puccini immediately sensed the enormous dramatic potential in the work. The moving story of the love between the poet Rodolfo and the tender Mimi, who is not destined to live long, and of the friendship of four young Montmartre artists was an ideal theme for an opera.