The Wolf Trap Opera Company and the National Symphony Orchestra collaborate in a one-night-only special multimedia presentation of Puccini’s bittersweet story of young love and heartbreak.

• The Wolf Trap Opera Company presents a staging of Puccini's most popular opera La bohème.
• This staging of a timeless hit has the added bonus of having the National Symphony Orchestra on stage with the brightest young professional vocal talent in the nation.
• The fully costumed production is contemporary and set in New York City.
• The performance features seven principal singers, 76 members of the National Symphony Orchestra, a chorus of over 100, stunning projections on a 60-foot wide screen that stretches the width of the Filene Center- effectivly transforming the Filene Center from Vienna to the streets of modern day Brooklyn.
• The opera is sung in Itialian; however, English translations are projected to the left and right of the stage.
• Running time is approximately 2.5 hours long.   

First performed on February 1, 1896 at Turin’s Teatro Regio

“Though I am poor, I squander songs of love like a wealthy man.
My dreams, hopes, and fantasies make me rich as a millionaire.
But all of my jewels are nothing next to your two beautiful eyes.” (Rodolfo)

The musical Rent has introduced a new generation to the crushingly beautiful story of young love that is La bohème. It started as a series of short stories published in a French magazine – a romantic look at what it was like to be a struggling artist in the Latin Quarter of Paris. The stories were turned into a play, which was picked up by the team of Puccini and his librettists as the subject material for their opera.

Many of us long for a brief taste of the freedom that we attribute to starving artists – freedom from the obligations of adulthood and society, and the ability to create music, paintings, novels, and poems that inspire. F. Scott Fitzgerald said that “the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time… [to] be able to see that things are hopeless yet be determined to make them otherwise.” The beauty of Bohème is that it draws us into the headiness of that freedom while reminding us that poverty often walks hand-in-hand with death and loss.

Rodolfo and Mimì love each other with abandon. She loves him so much that she hides her illness to protect him from worry. And he loves her so completely that he’s willing to give her up so she can find her way to a life that might cure her.

Marcello and Musetta love each other in their own dramatic and roller-coaster way – one of those relationships that is entertaining on the stage and pure hell in real life. But they both have hearts of gold.

Puccini’s music is unabashedly lush and descriptive. The potency of these young peoples’ dreams and desires comes across the footlights in their words, their actions, and the gloriously unfettered phrases of their singing. With the National Symphony Orchestra onstage, and our own cast of gloriously talented singer down front, Bohème will be an unforgettable night of young love and beautiful music.

Conductor – Stephen Lord
Director – Kevin Newberry
Projection Design – S. Katy Tucker
Scenic Consultant – Cameron Anderson
Costume Design – Jessica Jahn
Lighting Design – Mark Stanley
Hair & Makeup – Elsen Assoc

Musetta – Ava Pine
Mimi – Hana Park
Rodolfo – Diego Torre
Schaunard – Matthew Hanscom
Marcello – Daniel Billings
Colline – Carlos Monzón
Benoit/Alcindoro – Nicholas Masters