What happened to the love she and Rodolfo once had? Mimì has come to the tavern at the Barrière d'Enfer, one of the gates into Paris, to seek answers from her lover's best friend, Marcello.
But she quickly has to hide, as Rodolfo himself emerges from the tavern! In an effort to help the heartbroken Mimì, Marcello tries to force Rodolfo into admitting he still loves her — but what he confesses is much more dire, much more devastating.
In the song "Mimì è tanto malata," Rodolfo explains he's noticed Mimì growing increasingly ill, and he's convinced her coughing fits foretell her doom. "My room is a squalid den. I have no fire," Rodolfo tells Marcello, trying to get him to understand why he rejected Mimì so cruelly. "I am the cause of the sickness that's killing her."
Mimì, meanwhile, is suddenly forced to confront a truth she's never faced before: that her days are numbered.
Soprano Alexia Voulgaridou and baritone Alexey Markov make their company debuts as Mimì and Marcello, opposite tenor Michael Fabiano's Rodolfo, in our latest #OperaIsON streaming special, "La Bohème:" [ Ссылка ]
