La Bohème

Four brilliant casts take the stage as Puccini’s lovesick young bohemians in Franco Zeffirelli’s picturesque production. Sopranos Ailyn Pérez, Eleonora Buratto, Kristina Mkhitaryan and Corinne Winters alternate as the delicate seamstress Mimì, and tenors Dmytro Popov, Matthew Polenzani and Joseph Calleja share the role of the enamored poet Rodolfo. Maestros Kensho Watanabe, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Alexander Soddy and Riccardo Frizza take the podium for performances throughout the season.

World premiere: Teatro Regio, Turin, 1896. La Bohème, the passionate, timeless, and indelible story of love among young artists in Paris, can stake its claim as the world’s most popular opera. It has a marvelous ability to make a powerful first impression and to reveal unsuspected treasures after dozens of hearings. At first glance, La Bohème is the definitive depiction of the joys and sorrows of love and loss; on closer inspection, it reveals the deep emotional significance hidden in the trivial things — a bonnet, an old overcoat, a chance meeting with a neighbor — that make up our everyday lives.