I have a crush on this voice in this precise aria which makes me cry invariably...Why?
Mimi should never have trusted a poet and a tenor.
Colline is a "basso" a philosopher and a poet too. If he is departing from his old and tatty coat it is to get money to buy Mimi some medecine.
Colline will never bow to rich and mighty people, the low range of his voice speaks from his heart, he is a nonconformist and can be trusted.
Puccini wrote a sort of "marche funèbre": "addio "to the golden days, now it is time for worries and misfortune.
I have always imagined Colline's old coat with holes in the pockets, like another famous very young poet who was going away with his fists in his torn pockets...a sign of superiority of the mind.('Ma bohême' Rimbaud: another amazing story of a coat and more...)
In the legend of opera, Caruso did sing that aria on stage once; the bass had a sorethroat and mimed the singing while Caruso was singing this aria... unnoticed by the audience! (It has been recorded, just an oddity really!)
Ezio Pinza: opera arias.
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