Some of Puccini's loveliest lyrical moments grace La bohème.

Murger's novel enjoyed a favorable reception in Italy shortly after its initial publication and first translation into Italian in 1859. Murger's work, originally published (1845-1849) as a series of stories in a French journal, led an intermediary existence as a stage play before being transformed into a novel. By 1893, Puccini was considering composing an opera on Henri Murger's novel Scènes de la vie de bohème. La bohème was the first libretto for Puccini on which Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa collaborated.

Nevertheless, although contemporary critics received Puccini's La bohème coolly after its premiere under Arturo Toscanini in Turin on February 1, 1896, it was a hit with the public, and has endured as a favorite in the operatic repertoire. The validity of Puccini's claim is by no means certain. Whatever the initial catalysts, an 1893 meeting of the two composers, in which Puccini casually mentioned his La bohème project, induced the composers to publish in the Milanese press notices in which each laid a claim of priority to the subject. It was perhaps a common interest in the nineteenth century cultural fad of Bohemianism that led Giacomo Puccini and his contemporary Ruggiero Leoncavallo to decide to compose operas on the theme of Parisian starving artists.

La boheme opera arias