The most perfect moment in all of music, to me, is when Musetta returns to Marcello in the second act of La Boheme. It isn't that I have listened to enough opera, or music in general to make a statement like that. However, I can speak of Lear as being the most perfect tragedy without having read every single tragedies ever written, based on the intuitive perception of merit, rather than by comparing it to other tragedies, therefore the same with La Boheme.
I am in love with Musetta. When she screams, feigning pain, she screams in perfect tone, with impeccable diction. When she first lightly heaves quando m'en vo..., when the strings complement her by a wave-like motion, in that moment when everything else is silent, Musetta has everyone charmed, she has told us that we will sympathize with her wishes and her feelings. The soprano, a voice most pure and lyrical, seems like the voice made for her to corrupt with her insatiable desires. Then the voice itself seems like the thing made for her to express her capacity for love. When she sings, we do not hear her, or rather, we do not only hear her, but something in us follows her every movement, every notes of the music, every fluctuation in her breath, and her every words that we no longer understand because we have ceased to read the supertitles.
So Musetta has left Marcello for a better life; she is not responsible. At least, watching her, listening to her, singing As I walk through the streets, people stop to look at me..., listening to her exult her beauty, we are made to understand that she deserved then a better life, and that now Marcello has no choice but to accept her return to a wretched life with love. Musetta does not have to apologize. Musetta does not live with the same guilt and bonds as the other girls. For when she walks through the streets, people stop to look at her. For her beauty is supreme, and for Puccini gave to her the most beautiful piece of music. She is become a star, as did the legendary maiden of the mythical times by Zeus's love for them. Shyness is foreign to beautiful Musetta, and she does not beg for anyone's love. How wonderful is Musetta, that she does not beg for anyone's love! That is why we love her so, for she is the embodiment of the pleasure principle. Musetta is what the ancients called Eros.
I do not like Mimi. She is weak and she is dying. Every note she sings reeks of impending doom, and her innocence is frightfully prophetic. Mimi's reunion with Rodolfo is pathetic, while Musetta's reunion with Marcello is sublime. Mimi can tell us over and over how she loves flowers, but until she learns to love herself, she will never be quite like Musetta, and she will continue to die over and over again at the end of the fourth act, so that Rodolfo can cry for her, so that Colline can pawn his coat for her, and so that Musetta may buy her a cuff.
Same is with Violetta. Who can admire a woman who will give her and her lover's happiness so that some unknown tramp may marry some insignificant boy? Violetta is at her best when she is debating with herself whether she deserves to be happy or not. Musetta would debate with herself whether others deserve to be happy at the same time as her. Any expression of joy that escapes from Violetta's tragical lips seems feigned; any possibility of triumph in life is weighed down by the tragedy inherent in her incurable and ever present disease.
Carmen I like, but she still is not Musetta's equal in radiance. Carmen, like Musetta, have a flawlessly falstaffian attitude toward life. Her mezzo is dark and resonant and she has quite possibly the two most beautiful mezzo arias (on second thought, that isn't possible, for Rossini has lived). But Carmen is an idealist. She is not above dying to make a point, and she at the end lets poor Don Jose stab her in order to show that her freedom is absolute. In that way, Carmen, too, is diseased, although not with consumption as is fashionable among sopranos (for she is a mezzo) but with a naive idealism. And in addition to all that, she has no recitative.
La Boheme is an ensemble piece, with Rodolfo and Mimi as its hero and heroine. But neither Rodolfo nor Mimi, both of which are very fascinating and gripping characters, are allowed to dominate the opera, as Musetta, by her brief appearances, wrestles the plot from underneath them. The greatest crime ever committed by a man in this century maybe by Puccini, Giacosa, and Illica, when they would not more fully exploit Musetta's character. However, one must first understand that it is an enormous imaginative burden to create and sustain a character like Musetta, or Sancho Panza, or Falstaff. That is a feat seldom done, and even more seldom repeated. Meanwhile, what we have of Musetta is enough to make us love her. In that moment when Musetta sing what we now call Musetta's waltz, we have a glimpse of a soul that knows neither boundaries nor apologies. We see in Musetta the possibilities that is inherent in life.
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