From the very start of Puccini's wintry La Bohème, the orchestra is transformed into an oversized fireplace: a flickering fiery scherzo full of orchestral colors that warms the freezing bohemians. We’ll be hearing the latter in a top-class cast – including Carolina López Moreno as Mimì and star tenor Benjamin Bernheim as Rodolfo. The production will feature music director Marco Armiliato, a globally sought-after maestro who is engaged at the Met, La Scala, and the Wiener Staatsoper.

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Giacomo Puccini: La Bohème

Festspielhaus Baden-Baden

Like a painting brought to life: within a transparent structure, the vibrant Paris of the nineteenth century comes to life, forming the backdrop of an unforgettable story of love and friendship. The most recent Arena production of La Bohème, designed by Alfonso Signorini, returns to the Arena di Verona for four nights.

La Bohème

Arena di Verona

La Traviata is set in the world of Parisian high society. This popular opera tells the story of the courtesan, Violetta Valéry: her loves and her sad fate. It is based on the dramatic adaptation of the romantic novel, "La Dame aux Camélias" by Alexandre Dumas fils, modeled by the author on the high-class mistress, Marie Duplessis. Giuseppe Verdi then took the story, making its heroine a contemporary woman, and writing an innovative opera in which he raised the role of the music itself to that of expressing the story's emotions. Starting with "Libiamo ne' lieti calici", which has become a well-known, staple tune of gala concerts, the work features numerous other famous songs, such as Violetta's most technically demanding aria, "Ah, fors'è lui-sempre libera", in the prelude foretelling tragedy, and Germont's "Di Provenza il mar, il suol".

La Traviata

New National Theatre

Teatro dell'Opera di Roma

Resumption of the show staged in September 2017 and then again between December 2019 and January 2020, applauded by both critics and the public, one of the most beloved works of the Italian repertoire returns to the stage of the Maggio: La bohème, the masterpiece by Giacomo Puccini, with the libretto by Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica, inspired by the novel by Henri Murger Scènes de la vie de bohème.

La bohème

Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Theatre

A scandalous novel by Abbé Prévost from 18th century Paris tells of the "amour fou" between the young noble Chevalier Des Grieux and the bourgeois girl Manon Lescaut. Both violate morality and law in the name of love and become the most famous couple of their era. Manon is torn between a passionate love and her desire for a life of wealth and security. On the way to the convent, she is matched with a wealthy man by her brother but elopes with her lover. In the house of the wealthy Geronte, to which she returns, she is regarded merely as an attraction, yet choosing the loving Des Grieux and leaving everything behind proves difficult for her. During an escape attempt, she is arrested as a thief and sentenced to exile in the American colonies. Des Grieux, who attempts in vain to save her, follows her into exile, where their shared path ultimately ends in the desert. A tragic love story where love finds no place to unfold. The year 1893 marks a turning point for Italian opera: the 80-year-old Giuseppe Verdi retires from the stage with his last opera FALSTAFF. At the same time, there is no longer any doubt as to who will be his successor: with MANON LESCAUT, Giacomo Puccini experiences his first global success and creates a new Italian opera that reflects the spirit of the age: the emotions are intense and torn, the forms are free, the acts follow one another episodically and obey only the laws of passion. Puccini pays homage to the 18th century in the score, yet the fascination that Richard Wagner's music had on him is particularly felt with particular compulsion in this opera. Richness of colour, dramatic expressiveness, and emotive cantilenas make MANON LESCAUT a very special Italian opera work, with the most demanding tenor role Puccini ever wrote. The new General Music Director Andrés Orozco-Estrada opens his first season at the podium of the Gürzenich Orchestra with this premiere. Carlos Wagner, a director of international standing, makes his debut in Cologne with MANON LESCAUT.

Manon Lescaut

Cologne Opera

Ruggero Leoncavallo claimed that the story of Pagliacci was true: a murder he himself, as a child, allegedly witnessed being committed by a killer dressed as a clown. At the beginning of the opera, a character—the Prologue—feels compelled to warn us that everything we are about to see is not fiction, as in a traditional disclaimer, but a genuine “slice of life.” But is it really so? Where does the boundary between reality and representation lie? And is that fragile boundary enough to save a life in danger?

Pagliacci

Teatro Regio di Torino

An opera seria in a prologue and three acts to a libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, Simon Boccanegra debuted at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice on 12 March 1857. However, after many years, Verdi became convinced of the need to rework it, and assisted by Arrigo Boito for the libretto, he prepared a second version that debuted successfully on 24 March 1881 at La Scala in Milan. The action, set in and around Genoa around the middle of the 14th century, recounts the drama of the protagonist, Doge Boccanegra, victim of intrigues and conspiracies. The subject was taken from the drama of the same name by the Spaniard Antonio García Gutiérrez, from whose repertoire Verdi had already drawn inspiration for Trovatore. After its debut, the Gazzetta di Venezia described Boccanegra as an opera “too grand and severe”, characterised by a “lugubrious hue”. Verdi, deliberately and precisely because of the nature of a drama characterised by a thirst for power, a desire for revenge, and respect for the reason of state, chose to focus all his attention on the dark-toned male voices (basses and baritones), entrusting them with the narration of the intestine struggles that torment the republic of Genoa.

Carolina López Moreno

Events

Upcoming events

Oct 15 - Nov 21, 2026

Pagliacci · Teatro Regio Torino

15 - 24 Nov, 2026

Simon Boccanegra · Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino

13 - 17 May, 2027

Daniel Harding / Leoncavallo: Pagliacci · Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia

Past events

Aug 23, 2026

Giacomo Puccini: La Bohème · Festspielhaus Baden-Baden

3 - 25 Jul, 2026

La Bohème · Fondazione Arena di Verona

Future and recently performed repertoire

Nedda in Pagliacci by Leoncavallo

Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia

Manon Lescaut in Manon Lescaut by Puccini

Oper Köln

Mimi in La bohème by Puccini

Festspielhaus Baden-Baden

Mimì in La bohème by Puccini

Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino

Violetta Valéry in La traviata by Verdi

Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra

Amelia Grimaldi (Maria Boccanegra) in Simon Boccanegra by Verdi

Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino

About

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