Act:I
It is Christmas Eve in a cold garret occupied by four Bohemians in the Latin Quarter of 1830 Paris. The poet Rodolfo is at a table writing while the artist Marcello is working on his painting of the Red Sea. When Marcello complains of the cold, Rodolfo offers to burn his manuscript for some heat. As they tear it up and throw it into the stove, the philosopher Colline comes in with a bundle of books he has unsuccessfully been trying to pawn. All three are trying to warm themselves when the musician Schaunard comes in with two boys carrying food and fuel. He tosses money on the table and tries to tell his friends the ludicrous details of his three-days’ musical engagement with an eccentric Englishman, but they are to eager to eat the food he has brought. As they pass around the wine, they decide that since it is Christmas Eve, they will go out to their favorite café to dine. They are interrupted by a knock on the door, which proves to be their landlord, Benoit, who has come for the rent. After clearing away their provisions, they invite him in and offer him some wine, in the hopes of distracting him. The wine loosens his tongue and he begins to boast of his conquests of women at shady resorts. The four friends pretend indignation and eject him from the room, then prepare to depart to the café Momus. Rodolfo decides to finish his article and will meet them shortly. As he begins to write, he hears a knock on the door followed by a woman’s voice asking for help in re-lighting her candle. Rodolfo lets her in and lights her candle, but when she starts to leave, she collapses in a fit of severe coughing, indicating her advanced stage of consumption. When Rodolfo helps her to a chair, both candles go out. She starts to leave again but discovers that she has lost the key to her room. They begin to search the floor of the moonlit room, and when Rodolfo finds the key he slips it into his pocket and pretends to continue searching. When their hands meet, he becomes concerned about how cold her hand is and then begins to tell her about himself. She responds in kind, giving her name, Mimi, and telling of her work embroidering flowers for a living. As his friends call up to him from the street below, he is drawn to Mimi’s beauty in the moonlight. They confess their love for each other in a beautiful love duet before leaving to join the holiday festivities.
Act:II
In the square outside the café Momus, a happy Christmas Eve crowd greets each other and checks out the vendor’s cart. Mimi is attracted to a bonnet which Rodolfo buys for her. Rodolfo’s friends are at a table outside the café and Rodolfo joins them with Mimi. As they order food and wine, Parpignol the toy vendor crosses the square followed by the children whose mothers are trying to restrain them.. A sudden loud laugh signals the arrival of Musetta, Marcello’s estranged lover. She is accompanied by the aged but wealthy Alcindoro who is out of breath trying to keep up with her. Spotting Marcello with his friends, she tries to make him jealous, then to make him aware, without arousing her escorts suspicions, that she still loves him. Feigning that a shoe hurts, she makes the ridiculous Alcindoro undo and remove it, and then hurry off to the cobbler’s. She and Marcello then embrace, and she joins the five friends at their table. When the waiter brings the check for their order, the Bohemians try to get together enough money, but Musetta takes their bill and asks the waiter to add it to her gentleman friend’s bill. A military patrol enters led by a drum major asking people to join the parade, and the friends fall in with the others while carrying Musetta on their shoulders, and disappearing just as Alcindoro returns to find he is stuck with the bill for all of them.
Act:III
At a gate to the city of Paris, Mimi enters looking pale, distressed and frailer than ever. She sits on a bench near a tavern where she has sent a message to Marcello. When he comes out she greets him lovingly, but refuses to go inside with him to see Rodolfo. She weeps and tells Marcello that Rodolfo is so jealous of her she fears they must part. When Rodolfo, having missed Marcello, comes out to look for him, Mimi hides, and overhears her lover tell his friend that he wishes to give her up because of their frequent quarrels. A fit of coughing announces Mimi’s presence to Rodolfo and he runs to her. In a touching duet, the two agree to part. Meanwhile Marcello, who has re-entered the tavern, has caught Musetta flirting with a stranger. This starts a quarrel which brings them into the street where the lovers’ farewells become a quartet – one couple gentle and melancholy, the other aggressive and disputatious. Musetta and Marcello storm off angrily, while Mimi and Rodolfo agree to stay together untill Spring.
Act: IV
Back in the garret, Rodolfo is longing for Mimi, from whom he has heard nothing, and Marcello for Musetta who, having left him, is having a fling with a wealthy patron. Schaunard and Colline come in and the four attempt to forget their sorrows and poverty by indulging in some frolic. At the height of their fun, Musetta enters, announcing that Mimi is dying and has asked to be brought back to the garret where she and Rodolfo had been so happy. Rodolfo rushes out to get her and helps her to the cot. As Rodolfo tries to warm her cold hands, Musetta gives her earrings to Marcello, asking him to sell them in order to buy a tonic for the dying girl. There is no coffee, no wine, so Colline takes his overcoat, bids it farewell, then takes it out to buy provisions. Musetta runs off to get a muff to warm Mimi’s hands. Left alone, the two former lovers recall happy memories of their time together. Musetta and the others return with the muff and medication and are full of anxiety over Mimi's condition. When Rodolfo leaves her bed, believing her to be resting, the others become aware that she has died and try to keep it from him. When he reads in their faces what has happened, he falls upon her lifeless form sobbing and crying out her name.
