Life is grand! And it’s cold … on Christmas Eve in the Latin Quarter of Paris, around the year 1830. The four Bohemians haven’t got enough money for rent, nor for firewood, nor for Christmas supper. Though penniless, they are fabulously rich in joie de vivre, with hearts afire – until the shadow of looming death breaks into their carefree lives …

Puccini’s masterpiece about the artistic life in nineteenth century Paris is a tale of longing, love, art, and fate, set against a panorama of big city freedoms, loneliness, and joie de vivre. Inspired by daguerreotypes, a forerunner of photography, the stage design of Rufus Didwiszus brings the city of Paris to life as a magical artistic space in which the frenetic life of the Bohemian collides with the pain of evanescence.