The setting by director Richard Jones is beautifully executed. The Royal Opera © 2024 Mihaela Bodlovic

Our English word catharsis comes from the ancient Greek katharsis, which literally translates as “purification” or “purgation.” The Greek philosopher Aristotle, in his work Poetics (335 BC), argues that the purpose of watching a tragedy is to purge negative emotions, such as terror and pity, in order to leave the venue with the balance of mind required to be a good citizen. So, too, does opera evoke great feeling in its spectators: from the pathos of the finale of Verdi’s La Traviata to the horror of the descent into hell in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, to see an opera is to experience the collective outpouring of emotion. La Bohème at the Royal Opera House was a strong example of this. Glancing around the auditorium, I saw English gentlemen remove their glasses to wipe away a tear; I heard young women and venerable elderly chaps muffle sobs into their sleeves.

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What brought about this outpouring of emotion among the usually reticent Britons? The setting by director Richard Jones is beautifully executed: we open with a 19th-century Parisian garret, the Haussmannian rooftop well articulated and the wooden beams of the ceiling providing a prop against which the characters—artists, poets, writers, the Parisian Bohème—to occasionally lean. Snow falls continually from the sky; snowflakes flutter down, illuminated by moonlight and shrouded in smoke billowing from chimneys. Yet it would........

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