“Che gelida manina”from La Bohème (1896)

Mimì’s “tiny hand is frozen” because it’s a cold December evening in Paris and, as a young seamstress, she cannot afford to heat her little room. Nor can her neighbour Rodolfo, a poet, whose work is interrupted by a knock on the door: Mimì’s candle has gone out and she has come to ask him to relight it for her. Before she goes back to her room, however, she drops her key on the floor and, in pretending to help her find it, Rodolfo’s hand touches hers… “Che gelida manina” marks the beginning of another passionate but ultimately tragic relationship. This most famous of tenor arias begins tenderly, accompanied only by muted strings and harp, but, as Rodolfo gets carried away by his romantic description of his life as a poet, increases in expressive intensity and vocal pressure, until it dies away on the quietest of woodwind harmonies.