Che gelida manina...or 'You should have worn thicker gloves'...

Mimi and I had the same problem today - our tiny hands were frozen.  Stupid glove choice on my part, rather than fatal chest complaint, it has to be said, but it got me thinking.  La Boheme is a lovely opera, with a simple story to tell; poor student has a chance encounter with a beautiful but dying neighbour, falls madly in love but drives her away with false accusations.  It ends badly, as do most operas. So far, so tragic.  It's always had a place in my heart, though, trite as it is - I lost my opera virginity with it, more years ago than I care to remember.  It was my 'Pretty Woman'  moment and I was forever ruined, although Richard Gere was conspicuous by his absence that evening, I seem to remember.  Anyway, I digress.

It struck me last evening, as I watched the rather splendid live feed production from Covent Garden, just exactly how many times Puccini mentions tiny hands in the course of the performance - in a filmed production, you see much more of the action AND hear more than you would watching from the stalls in a theatre - and I fell to thinking, was a 'tiny hand' (frozen or otherwise) actually  some sort of Victorian code for something else?  And then I couldn't get it out of my head.  'What-ho, Lord Cedric! Seen the new filly at the bar? SPLENDID... tiny hands...if you get my drift...'  or 'Of course, she's not the sort for marrying, though.  Tiny frozen hands, what, what!'...I had visions of evening-suited Victorian gentlemen attending performances and having to make 'adjustments' to their clothing every time 'tiny frozen hands' were mentioned.

Taking this a little further, it all seems to fit.  Much is made of Mimi's 'tiny frozen hands'.  One could make allowances for her being sick unto death with the consumption or be kind and think 'Cold hands, warm heart' but, in actuality, she's a wee bit on the mercenary side.  She agrees to have supper with Rodolfo with indecent haste after their first meeting, AND cons him into shelling out for new a pink bonnet on the way to the restaurant, even though he's poorer than the poorest church mouse.  Despite the bonnet, she eventually leaves him, goes over to the Musetta side (now there's a trollop to be reckoned with!) and takes up with some Count with a shiny carriage, and this after she hears Rodolfo saying how much he loves her and her tiny hands, but that he's too poor to look after her properly and that she's going to die.  Rodolfo's STILL singing the praises of her tiny hands at this point.  THEN, when the coughing all gets too much and it's bloody red hanky time, Mimi re-appears, having begged Musetta to bring her back to die in Rodolfo's shabby garret.    He's STILL singing about the merits of her tiny frozen hands.  She's singing about her tiny frozen hands as she slumps breathlessly pale on the rag-strewn bed.  Someone even goes out to buy her (and I can't believe I'm writing this) a MUFF to put her tiny frozen hands into whilst she coughs herself to death.  It has to be a metaphor for something else - either that, or I'm just not the opera-loving, face-value sentimentalist that I was.  Whatever. Maybe I'd just overdosed on Revels...  

Anyway - you can watch a spiffy recording of the 'Tiny Frozen Hand' song here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOKM9cHpttY if you've a  mind to.   Hidden meaning or not, it's STILL a fantastic piece of music and it was a perfectly splendid evening in the company of another woman's husband; mine was at home with a bottle of wine and 'The Expendables'.