LA Opera Talk: La Boheme April 15, 2012

It's Christmas in Paris as the quintessential bohemian love story comes to life: a candle flickers out on Christmas Eve, tentative hands meet in the dark, and a rapturous duet soars under the moonlight… this is Puccini’s La Boheme. Inspired by Henri Murger's novel, Scènes de la vie de bohème, La Boheme inspired the award-winning Broadway musical Rent. The opera is a collection of vignettes portraying six young bohemians living in the Latin Quarter of Paris in the 1840s.

Guided by an L.A. Opera Community Educator, you will follow this heartbreaking story of a poet who discovers true love with a lovely, fragile seamstress, and a painter and vivacious cabaret singer who rediscover their on-again, off-again passion. Surrounded by the evocative rooftops, cafés and garrets of Paris, these lively bohemians and their companions experience exhilarating joy and irretrievable loss. The production at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion at the Music Center features a fresh, young cast headed by an irresistible pair of fast-rising young singers, Ailyn Pérez and Stephen Costello as Mimi and Rodolfo.
This introduction to opera at Crowell Public Library is free. After hearing excerpts from this production, you’ll undoubtedly be inspired to make a trip to the Los Angeles Music Center for a real opera experience.