About: World
premiere: Teatro Regio, Turin, 1896. Met company premiere: Los Angeles (on tour), November
9, 1900. 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.