Giacomo Puccini’s most famous opera, La Bohème, tells the poignant story of four struggling young artists living in Paris in the late 1880s.
Rodolfo, a poet, falls deeply in love with Mimì, a gentle seamstress, while his friend Marcello, a painter, navigates a stormy on-again, off-again relationship with the vivacious Musetta. Rodolfo and Mimì share a brief period of happiness, but their love is overshadowed by hardship. Fearing that their poverty will worsen Mimì’s tuberculosis, Rodolfo convinces himself that they must part. Months later, when Mimì becomes gravely ill, she returns to the garret where Rodolfo and his friends live. The two lovers reminisce tenderly about their first meeting and their love, but their reunion comes too late. Mimì dies peacefully, leaving Rodolfo heartbroken and inconsolable. Starring Mary McCabe as Mimì and Robyn Lyn Evans as Rodolfo with Tereza Gevorgyan and Jean-Kristof Bouton as Musetta and Marcello.
Bringing together Diva Opera’s internationally celebrated chamber opera company and incorporating members of the NI Opera Chorus, this production places audiences at the heart of the story. Staged with the greatest of detail, this intimate and up-close experience performed with a Steinway grand piano, allows La Bohème to unfold within the soaring Gothic interior of the Carlisle Memorial Church, taking the audience into the Parisian garrets of the Bohemians.
For members of the NI Opera Chorus, the production represents a significant opportunity to perform staged repertoire alongside leading UK artists, further strengthening the company’s commitment to developing Northern Ireland-based singers with experience in paid, professional, high-calibre productions.
- Ticket Price: £62.50 plus booking fee and include an interval reception with drinks and canapés
- All Events Ticket Price: £82.50 plus booking fee – includes La Bohème plus a ticket to Morning Melodies on Wednesday 13 February at 11 am and the Costume and Wigs Skills Talk by the Diva Costume and Wigs Team on Friday 15 February at 11 am, all in the Carlisle Memorial Church
About Diva Opera, Britain’s foremost chamber opera company was founded by Anne Marabini Young and Bryan Evans thirty years ago, to take opera out of the confines of traditional theatre and bring it to unique settings. Since its inception, the company has earned an unrivalled reputation within the operatic world and beyond. Giving around 40 performances of full operas and concerts annually, they are now ambassadors for chamber opera internationally. Highlights for the company include a performance of La Cenerentola at La Fenice Opera House in Venice, The party scene from Die Fledermaus at the Royal Albert Hall, with José Carreras and Dame Kiri Te Kanawa as special guests and performances at the Tokyo International Forum for the prestigious French music festival La Folle Journée. This year they will tour throughout the UK, Channel Islands, France and South Africa with new productions of La Cenerentola and La Bohème.
- This collaboration has been made possible through the generous support of the Laidlaw Opera Trust, whose grant directly enables the partnership between Diva Opera and NI Opera and supports the presentation of opera in innovative, accessible formats.
- Northern Ireland Opera is principally funded by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.
- The production also marks a renewed collaboration with the Belfast Buildings Trust, custodians of the Carlisle Memorial Church.