From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

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La Vie de bohème is an often-adapted story first serialized by Henri Murger in the early 1800s. These were turned into a play, La Vie de Bohème, in 1849, and later were compiled into the book Scènes de la vie de bohème (Paris, 1851). It has also been made into several operatic versions, the most famous of which was composed by Giacomo Puccini.

Plot summary

The story includes a group of friends in the Bohemian artistic subculture of France (see Bohemianism). As the group is poor, and some of its female members work as courtesans, challenging personal situations arise when one of the characters, who suffers from tuberculosis, must balance survival against romantic love.

Influence

In the late 20th century, the musical Rent was based on La Bohème, with AIDS substituted for tuberculosis. A movie, Moulin Rouge!, was also loosely based on this plot; it was directed by Baz Luhrmann, who had previously directed a wildly successful Australian production of Puccini's opera version which opened on Broadway in 2002.