La Bohème: Opera Australia’s Production Of This Timeless Story Is Flawless

If you have never been to the Opera, La Bohème is the perfect place to start. Puccini’s classic tale of love and loss is quite simply one of the most popular operas of all time. And what better place than the Sydney Opera House to take in the most opulent of all art forms?

La Bohème centres on the tragic love story of a struggling poet named Rodolfo and his captivating neighbour, a seamstress named Mimi (Olivia Cramwell). Rodolfo lives and carouses in a garret with three roommates. When Mimi, weak with tuberculosis, knocks on the door and asks Rodolfo to light her candle, the sparks fly. 

Australian Chinese tenor Kang Wang stands out as Rodolfo. The son of two professional opera singers in China, it is little wonder why he is widely sought after by opera companies around the world.  Wang’s rendition of one of opera’s best known and most recorded Tenor arias, Che gelida manina, is mesmerising. 

The Australian-American soprano Rachelle Durkin’s performance as the seductive Musetta is spectacular. Her coquettish charm is palpable as she performs the much loved and famous aria Quando m’en vo.

Durkin commands the stage with the presence of a Broadway star. The years she spent performing in New York are clearly on display. 

The ensemble cast delivers Puccini’s score perfectly. And yet more than stationery singers, being directed by Danielle Maas, they are a formidable acting troupe, delivering a range of emotions brilliantly. 

Now in its 14th year, Opera Australia’s production of La Bohème is flawless. La Bohème was originally set in the Latin Quarter in Paris in the 1830s.

Acclaimed Australian theatre director Gail Edwards’ production is set one hundred years later – in Berlin in the 1930s. The stage is transformed into a massive Spiegeltent, and the costumes could be worn by the cast of Cabaret. 

Edward’s choice to set La Bohème in the Berlin of the Weimar Republic underscores the social upheaval that lurks beyond the bohemian joie de vivre. The intellectual and artistic milieu that centred around Paris’ Left Bank in the 1830s took place against the backdrop of the Industrial Revolution. Huge swathes of the population were displaced from rural communities to urban centres, ultimately contributing to enclaves like the Latin Quarter and the rise of tuberculosis in city centres. 

By the 1930s, the technological revolution generated even more disruption. The advent of cinema, radio, automobiles, and airplanes led to shifting social mores and a lack of social cohesion – which ultimately led to the collapse of the Weimar Republic and the rise of the Third Reich.  Nearly 100 years after the 1930s, the themes sound eerily familiar. 

Ultimately, La Bohème is a timeless story that can be set in any age. To make the point, one week after La Boheme concludes, Opera Australia is mounting a production of the Broadway musical RENT, which was based on none other than La Bohème. The Left Bank of Paris is transformed to New York’s Greenwich Village. Tuberculosis is replaced by AIDS.  And ultimately love is love.

What better reason could there possibly be to buy a subscription package to Opera Australia?

La Boheme is on at the Sydney Opera House from 23 August to 20 September, 2025.