Edinburgh International Festival 2017 – Puccini’s ‘La Boheme’

Opera’s greatest, most heartbreaking love story. La bohème is a sumptuous, visually magnificent new production direct from the Teatro Regio, Turin – the opera house that gave the opera its very first staging, back in 1896. It is conducted by Music Director Gianandrea Noseda and directed by Àlex Ollé.

Amid the towering metal tangles of a city of today, when penniless young writer Rodolfo meets fragile artisan Mimì, he’s smitten. But can their blazing romance survive the bitter chill of their lives on the edges of society – or can it only flicker and die?

Àlex Ollé, director of Catalan theatre collective La Fura dels Baus, transplants Puccini’s poignant masterpiece from its traditional Parisian garret to the fringes of a bracingly modern-day, multicultural metropolis, where the young creators of tomorrow party, bicker and try to live out their dreams.

Ollé’s staggering set fills all three dimensions of the stage with moving edifices of metal – visually stunning in their evocations of the flickering lights of a winter city after dark, and playing out Puccini’s poignant love story across several levels at once.

Tickets for La Boheme at the Festival Theatre are available from here