By Jack Goodstein [Seattle PI, 6 February 2011]
I don’t know if Puccini’s La Boheme is the most often recorded opera ever written, but if it isn’t, it has got to be one of the prime contenders for that honor. The tragic lovers have been sung by most every significant soprano and tenor of the past century, many more than once: Callas and Freni, Victoria de Los Angeles and Montserrat CaballÈ, Placido Domingo and Jussi Bjorling, and Gigli and Pavarotti. And these are only a few.