Puccini's 1896 opera opens as Rodolfo and Marcello, equally broke, are too cold to concentrate on their respective projects. Schaunard arrives, flush with cash, firewood, and food. It is he who voices the fact that it is Christmas Eve, which the others had apparently forgotten. Although his roommates initially wish to devour the groceries, Schaunard tempts them to the Café Momus, where the air is not only festive but perfumed with the scent of cooking! The date may explain why their landlord, Benoit, is not suspicious when the boys press him to join them in a drink, causing him to overlook that the rent is due; this allows them to leave the flat with Schaunard's money intact. In Act II, the Left Bank is teeming with vendors hawking every imaginable item. We usually miss a charming exchange during all the bustle: Rodolfo can only afford a little bonnet for Mimi, though she admires a more costly coral necklace...he assures her that he will be able to buy more than that when his rich uncle dies...but when Marcello asks Mimi what Rodolfo has bought her, she praises the bonnet highly, already in love. Musetta soon appears; her wealthy lover, Alcindoro, is overloaded with purchases presumably all for herself. But, although the children thrill to the appearance of the toyseller, Parpignol, and to the approach of a military Tattoo, Act II contains no textual references to Christmas; nor does Act III, which takes place in February; nor Act IV, a few weeks later. The dying Mimi reminisces about how, not when she met Rodolfo.
Act I of Leoncavallo's 1897 opera -- in which the roommates live directly above the café -- not only takes place on Christmas Eve but, nearly as soon as the opera opens, Schaunard announces the holiday in his very first line, while asking his unpaid landlord for some charity in light of the holiday. There is no candle-snuffing, no dropped key, no Alcindoro. Schaunard's and Marcello's respective girlfriends, Eufemia and Musetta, arrive along with Mimi whom Musetta introduces to all in what is probably the opera's most memorable aria. The Bohemians do not descend to the café but order a dinner -- that they cannot afford -- to be brought up to the room. A diner at Momus, Barbemuche, who has admired the artists from afar, steps forth with an offer to pay their bill, but they are too suspicious of his motives to accept. It's Schaunard who offers a solution: a game of billiards, betting the bill, and Barbemuche graciously and deliberately loses. Act I ends with all happily singing "Noel!" The festive Act II is in fact a kind of impromptu block party that erupts several months later when Marcello and Musetta find themselves on the street, along with their belongings, for non-payment of rent. Unlike Puccini, Leoncavallo paces his months along, taking the Bohemians through a full calendar year. His opera ends on the following Christmas Eve, when the boys are deeply impoverished, Rodolfo bitterly disillusioned with life. Mimi turns up, abandoned by her wealthy lover and recently discharged from hospital. Aware that she is about to die, she seeks to cheer up Rodolfo by pointing out that it is Christmas...and on that very line, she dies and the curtain descends. It would appear that, for these Bohemians at least, Christmas itself almost has the grim first and last word.
