Opera Australia: ‘La Bohème’

With the flickering of a candle, love sparks. Two hands meet in the dark and four friends’ lives are changed forever. The way first love grabs hold and floods you with something you’ve never felt before. The fire that burns the first time jealousy flares. The growing up you do in the instant that you realise love can’t last forever. Puccini takes these achingly human feelings and sets them to music — music that soars with the ecstasy of love, crackles with the pain of jealousy and cries with the agony of loss. Some human emotions are too big for words alone, and for that, we have music. ‘La Bohème’ exposes your soul to the feelings that only music can express. Gale Edwards’ glittering production is set among the fishnets and fairy lights of 1930s bohemian Berlin. Two brilliant casts share the season led by three Australian conductors. Joyce El-Khoury and Ivan Magrì make their Australian debuts as Mimì and Rodolfo, alongside the return of audience favourites Anna Princeva, Samuel Dundas, Maija Kovalevska, Diego Torre, Julie Lea Goodwin, Luke Gabbedy and Lorina Gore.