Opera Delaware presents their performance of Puccini’s La Boheme this weekend in Wilmington.
You might not know La Boheme, but there’s a pretty good chance you’re familiar with the opera, just in a different form.
“It has been adapted and inspired a lot of kind of spin offs," says Kerriann Otano, Vice-President of Engagement at Opera Delaware. "The musical Rent is based on the story of the opera La Boheme, as is the basis for the Cher movie Moonstruck is also based around La Boheme.”
According to Otano, La Boheme is a great work for first-timers and the opera-curious.
“It's a beautiful and timeless piece that you're going to recognize your friends in," she says. "You're going to see ex boyfriends and ex girlfriends, and some of these characters - you're going to recognize people that you know and love, stories that you know in this opera.”
And for operagoers worried about getting lost in translation, Otano says never fear.
"La Boheme is an excellent first opera. A lot of people are hesitant to go to the opera because they worry they won't understand the plot. They worry that because it's in another language, it will be too confusing. But the great thing about La Boheme is that we have projected English captions the entire time. So you know what the translations are that the artists are singing," she says.
One of the most popular operas in the word since its premiere in 1896, La Boheme follows the story of a seamstress and her artistic friends living the Bohemian lifestyle in 19th Century Paris.
La Boheme opens Friday at the Grand Opera House in Wilmington with an additional performance on Sunday afternoon.
Delaware Public Media's arts coverage is made possible, in part, by support from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency dedicated to nurturing and supporting the arts in Delaware, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.
