La bohème is an opera in four acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger. The world première performance of La bohème was in Turin on February 1, 1896 at the Teatro Regio (now the Teatro Regio Torino) and conducted by the young Arturo Toscanini. Since then La bohème has become part of the standard Italian opera repertory and is one of the most frequently performed operas internationally.

According to Opera America, it is the second most frequently performed opera in the United States, just behind another Puccini opera, Madama Butterfly. According to its title page, the libretto of La bohème is based on Henri Murger's novel, Scènes de la vie de bohème. Murger also collaborated with Théodore Barrière to write an adaptation of the work as a play with a much more unified plot than the novel's collection of vignettes.

Puccini rejected the play as a primary source, as its plot runs uncomfortably close to that of La traviata (Mimì is persuaded to leave Rodolfo by her lover's wealthy uncle, who uses the same arguments as Verdi's Germont). However, the libretto does resemble the play in a few respects, such as centering its focus on the relationship between Rodolfo and Mimì, ending with her death. Much of the libretto is original.

The main plots of acts two and three are the librettists' invention, with only a few passing references to incidents and characters in Murger. Most of acts one and four follow the novel, piecing together episodes from various chapters. The final scenes in acts one and four — the scenes with Rodolfo and Mimì — resemble both the play and the novel.

The story of their meeting closely follows chapter 18 of the novel, in which the two lovers living in the garret are not Rodolphe and Mimi at all, but rather Jacques and Francine. The story of Mimì's death in the opera draws from two different chapters in the novel, one relating Francine's death and the other relating Mimi's.

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