The Australian filmmaker behind Moulin Rouge and The Great Gatsby gives insight to the creative process behind his epic 2002 Broadway revival of “La Bohème”.
Before mounting an early production of “La Bohème,” for example, Luhrmann said, “Let’s go live the life of Puccini!” And they flew to Italy and set up in Torre del Lago, where Puccini wrote many of his operas.
They traveled to Milan and went over every inch of La Scala, the opera house. They lived “like total bohos,” Luhrmann said, content in the knowledge that “the work itself was only just as important as the adventure of actually living the work. Living the work has always been the thing that has enriched and sustained.”
Caveat: Don't die of tuberculosis.