In the April, 1963 issue of Opera, Claudio Sartori, then the magazine’s Milan correspondent, called the new Bohème a “milestone,” a “revolution.” He gave it historic stature: “It will certainly be judged a model for all future performances of the work, which can never again be staged in the traditional old way.” He said that this “revolution” consisted primarily of a new, more realistic, attitude towards Acts 2 and 3. In Act 2, he felt that with his concept of a two-level set,  a great crowd in constant motion on a terrace above while, once the action shifted to the principals, they were shown in the interior (Sartori’s emphasis) of the cafe below, with glass doors showing the square and crowd beyond, Zeffirelli had solved the act’s central obstacle to credibility, namely, that the characters sat at tables outside the Momus in the dead of the Parisian winter.

Well, yes, cold is the main conditioning factor of the whole opera, and it does seem a bit weird that after a whole scene full of loud complaints about freezing while inside, the Bohemians and the conspicuously fragile Mimì head outside and sit there in apparent comfort. To be honest, this contradiction never bothered me much. I figured that it’s Christmas Eve amid great bustle and celebratory cheer, there’s alcohol and food, etc.—nobody minds the cold. The score’s instructions are quite pointed: the cafe sits on a square at the confluence of two or more streets (it even names the streets), and the Bohemians bring a second table out from inside the cafe, so that they can all sit together en plein air. So the creators were visualizing their Parisian scene with precision, obviously with the intention of making it authentic, and didn’t think the chill would be much of a factor.

But then, maybe they just couldn’t imagine the scenic problem being solved with the mechanical limitations of their time. And however seriously we do or don’t take the matter of temperature, Zeffirelli’s design created a spectacle of spirit-lifting vitality that transcended the usual ways of setting the act. Sartori called it “A truly magnificent painting by Manet brought to animated life!”^(I) I’m not sure I’ve ever quite seen Manet in the Met set, and have sometimes had trouble picking out who’s singing what to whom—but it’s a splendid sight, no doubt about that.

There is one magical sequence in the 1965 studio video. That is the opening of Act 3. It grabbed Sartori at La Scala, and it grabbed me, too, at the Met. The great banks of snow, seen through a light mist  (partly that scrim, I’m afraid) in the perfectly lit hours just before dawn, the beautifully defined comings and goings of the groups of scavengers and peasant women at the Barrière’s toll gate and of individuals with destinations we can only guess, the little patch of warm light from the tavern . . . and the director had clearly worked with his extras to capture the slowness and weight of slogging through a deep snow . . . and I thought, “That is uniquely Zeffirelli—no other director would give us that.” The scene’s spell has gradually diminished over the years. But oddly, it was still cast in the studio, despite the obvious inability of the camera to ever show it in full. With only snatches of singing from the small choral groups and, briefly, from Musetta inside the tavern, the orchestra has the major musical responsibility here, and von Karajan and the Scala forces fulfill their mission. V. K. was in his best period as an opera conductor then; the playing is blandishing, here as elsewhere, and the tempo ideal and sustained.