The best art has a timeless quality. Aspects of the piece may wither with time, but if the soil from which art blossoms is truthful, great work can last centuries. Take, for example, Giacomo Puccini's La bohème. When composing his tale of the Parisian bohemian scene of the 1800s, I doubt that Puccini realized that his work would perfectly parallel the AIDs crisis in the 80s.
On April 29, 1996, Rent made its Broadway debut and became a smash hit. Helping to launch the illustrious careers of Idina Menzel and Taye Diggs, Rent has gone on to become one of the most celebrated musicals of all time. Rent's Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and composer Jonathan Larson recently received the biopic treatment with the 2021 Oscar-nominated Tick, tick…Boom. Only time will tell if Rent will last as long as La bohème, but with the amount of acclaim it garnered over the last 26 years, it's safe to say Rent is well on its way.
