La Boheme was first performed in 1886 at the Teatro Regio in Turin. It soon became a staple of the operatic repertoire and has remained so ever since. Puccini had begun for the first time to speak with his own unmistakable voice in his earlier opera Manon Lescaut, but also Wagner and Massenet can be heard in it time and again. With La Boheme, the opera of his full maturity, these influences are wholly absorbed into his own personal language. The melodic idiom shows a markedly free, almost rhapsodic build. The duet O soave fanciulla is sung at the end of the first act. Mimě and Rodolfo sing of their new found love.
