Madison Opera returns to ‘La Bohème’

The romantic classic is a 'perfect first opera’

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It starts, as it always does, with a match being struck. A little flame, a little warmth, in a world that’s mostly cold. Giacomo Puccini’s La Bohème has been flickering like that since 1896 — passing from century to century, cast to cast, audience to audience — and somehow still feels like it was written for now. Madison Opera will bring the story back to Overture Hall on Nov. 7 and Nov. 9, and if opera general director Kathryn Smith has her way, it will feel like a premiere all over again.

“The story of young people falling in love — that’s eternal,” she says. “At its heart, it’s elemental. Puccini writes so tightly; it just flows.”

And flow it does. There’s no wasted breath in Bohème: artists in a freezing Paris attic, rent unpaid and eviction pending, laughter turning to heartbreak, a cough that foreshadows the inevitable. Puccini’s score propels the story forward in scenes that clip by, each melody already living within you, whether you’ve ever seen the opera or not.

For Madison Opera, Bohème isn’t just another title in rotation; it’s part of the company’s DNA. Its very first full production, back in 1963, was La Bohème. (It last produced the opera in 2015.) “It felt like time,” Smith says of bringing it back a decade after the company’s last staging. “Our vision is always to do an enormous range of opera — 400 years of it, from brand new to beloved. This season includes the world premiere of Madison-based composer Scott Gendel’s Everlasting Faint and Mozart’s effervescent Così fan tutte, so it made sense to anchor it with something timeless. For some people, this will be their first opera. For others, it’s like visiting an old friend.”

On the podium, Maestro John DeMain will lead the Madison Symphony Orchestra, a team that has helped shape many of the company’s most stirring productions. There are certain composers with whom DeMain especially excels — Puccini is one of them. His reputation was forged in the grand sweep of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, but he’s equally commanding in the lyricism of Verdi, the clarity of Mozart, and the intensity of Bernstein and Heggie. Few conductors move so fluidly between the classic European canon and the pulse of American opera.

With all its operatic possibilities — grand staging, big sets, elaborate costumes — comes something else: a big price tag. Smith says that’s the greatest challenge of producing Bohème. “The bigger the opera, the more expensive — more costumes, more sets, more people. But it’s worth it. Bohème has a way of paying you back emotionally.”

The production will look traditional — Paris in the 1830s, garrets and cafés intact — but Smith insists tradition doesn’t mean stagnation. Stage director Alison Pogorelc, a Milwaukee native and member of the Metropolitan Opera’s directing staff, is known for emotionally grounded, detail-driven work. Her recent Salome at Des Moines Metro Opera avoided gimmicks — “no multimedia pyrotechnics,” she told Iowa Public Radio — in favor of raw human connection. Reviewers have praised her for “nuanced and varied” staging that makes grand opera feel intimate and alive.

Of course, without the singers, there’s no show. They carry the emotion, the humor, the heartbreak — everything that makes Bohème live and breathe.

Smith selects the singers with a blend of opera knowledge, intuition, discovery, and long-term cultivation. “Some of these artists I’ve heard live in roles at Wolf Trap Opera,” she says. “Others I’ve come to know through materials sent by artist agents, and some are home-grown from our own young-artist program.”

“This cast is an exceptionally capable one,” Smith says. It’s led by Renée Richardson, whom Madison audiences may remember from Opera in the Park last summer. She sings Mimì opposite tenor Terrence Chin-Loy, who makes his Madison Opera debut. Reviewers have described him as “sympathetic” and “handsome,” and praised his lyric tenor for its warmth and expressive phrasing. Madison’s own talent shines too: Emily Secor as the irrepressible Musetta and Lifan Deng as Schaunard round out the bohemian circle.

“Every Bohème is new because the people are new,” Smith adds. “Different voices, different chemistry, different heartbreak.”

Those heartbreaks land hardest in the moments Puccini renders with almost cinematic precision. The Act III breakup — icy streets, the wind howling around them — remains one of opera’s most painful goodbyes. And then, of course, the final scene: Mimì’s return, the false hope, the orchestra falling away until it’s just silence. “You cry because you recognize it,” Smith says. “Whatever is going on in your own life, you see it reflected there.”

If that sounds heavy, it isn’t entirely. La Bohème is funny, messy, and relentlessly alive before it’s tragic. The acts are short, the plot brisk. “It’s the perfect first opera,” Smith says. “It’s romantic, relatable, and it moves. You laugh before you cry.” Madison Opera is even making it easy for students to attend with rush tickets that start at $20.

Madison Opera’s La Bohème, sung in Italian with English translations, runs Nov. 7 at 7:30 p.m. and Nov. 9 at 2:30 p.m. in Overture Hall. Pre-show talks by Smith begin one hour before curtain. Tickets and details at madisonopera.org/boheme