When Giacomo Puccini read Henri Murger’s work Les scènes de la vie de bohème in 1893, he was immediately taken with the freshness, youth, passion, cheerfulness and love with all its joys and sufferings. Puccini (1858-1924) immediately recognized the ideal material for an opera. The libretto was written by Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica, who had already worked successfully with the composer for Manon Lescaut.Puccini worked out the depth of the characters in detail in his Bohème: Important moments were meticulously composed and text and music form an incomparable unity. Puccini completely attuned the themes to the action, in which lyrical-sentimental parts contrast excellently with humorous, lively parts. Since he was a genius at writing precisely for the human voice, his operas, above all "La Bohème", were a great success because of their incomparably beautiful melodies. Famous arias like "Che gelida manina" or "Sì. Mi chiamano Mimì" can also be found on opera samplers due to the intensity of the transported feelings or are a fixed component of concert evenings.The stage-effective piece, first performed in Turin in 1896, with its impressionistic features around the poet Rodolfo and his beloved Mimì, who cannot escape poverty and misery in their Parisian attic, still brings tears of emotion to the eyes of the audience today. Puccini’s masterpiece is certainly one of the most original and magical operas ever written.

W. A. Mozart (1756-1791) created a piece of music history with this unique stage work, which since its premiere in September 1791 has become one of the most popular and most performed operas worldwide.When the theater and bon vivant Emanuel Schickaneder approached the financially and psychologically troubled composer in 1790 and presented him with a fairy-tale libretto, Mozart was immediately taken with it and added the masonic ideals and rites that were fashionable at the time. These gave the “Magic Flute” a completely different meaning and transformed the piece from a colorful magic pose into an almost testamentary appeal to humanity - entirely in the style of the spirit of the Viennese Classicism. Musically, this great German opera or Singspiel unites different styles such as opera seria, opera buffa and tragédie lyrique. Mozart’s genius united the French romance, the Italian aria and the German Lied to a fascinating kaleidoscope that inspires young and old alike. Popular arias from the "Magic Flute" such as “The Birdcatcher I am”, “Hell’s Revenge is boiling in my Heart”, or “This Portrait is Enchantingly Beautiful” are easily accessible to everyone. Goethe attested that this music alone would have provided a worthy accompaniment to his Faust.