<\/p>\nEmily Secor (Musetta) and members of the Madison Opera Chorus in rehearsal for Madison Opera’s “La Boh\u00e8me.”<\/p>\n
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JULIA SIMPSON<\/span> Indeed, Puccini\u2019s music has permeated every corner of popular culture. Whether it\u2019s the Broadway hit \u201cRent\u201d or an episode of the Simpsons, \u201cLa Boh\u00e8me\u201d is everywhere. Emily Secor, a Wisconsin-based soprano who plays Musetta, said she even heard an aria in the background of a \u201cGolden Girls\u201d episode recently.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The opera follows four struggling artists living in the Latin Quarter of 1830s Paris. Rodolfo (Terrence Chin-Loy), a poet, meets Mim\u00ec (Ren\u00e9e Richardson), a seamstress and a neighbor of theirs. The two instantly fall in love, while another of the roommates, Marcello (White), a painter, navigates his relationship with Musetta (Secor), an old girlfriend who he still loves \u2014 and who still loves him, despite her new relationship with the elderly but rich Alcindoro (Alex Taylor).\u00a0<\/p>\n
Over two hours and 40 minutes, the two couples navigate jealousy, poverty and Mim\u00ec\u2019s declining health.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\n <\/p>\nTerrence Chin-Loy (Rodolfo) and Ren\u00e9e Richardson (Mim\u00ec) in rehearsal for Madison Opera’s “La Boh\u00e8me.”<\/p>\n
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JULIA SIMPSON<\/span> \u201c\u2018La Boh\u00e8me\u2019 really does have some of the most heartbreaking scenes and such memorable tunes,\u201d said Chin-Loy, the Floridian tenor who plays Rodolfo. \u201cI feel so lucky to be able to be here and to use my body, my voice, to give life to this music.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a consistent theme of love throughout this opera,\u201d Secor added. \u201cYou may not be living in the 1830s, but the same concepts apply always. It\u2019s just like a neverending understanding of the ups and downs of relationships \u2026 how it feels to be in love with someone and to lose someone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Starving artists? \u2018Let\u2019s laugh about it\u2019<\/strong><\/h3>\nThe principal actors agree that while \u201cLa Boh\u00e8me\u201d premiered 129 years ago, the story it tells \u2014 one of love but also one of intense struggle, grief and hardship \u2014 is deeply relatable to both audience members but also themselves as people.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAnyone who has tried to come up in the world of the arts in general, but certainly in opera, has had to make sacrifices, and has had to make do with less sometimes,\u201d Chin-Loy said.<\/p>\n
White agreed. \u201cEveryone has been in their early to mid 20s, and so poor and trying to find humor and joy in things that most people later in their life would find so sad,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have a loaf of bread to split for dinner tonight, let\u2019s at least laugh about it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\n <\/p>\nKyle White (Marcello), Terrence Chin-Loy (Rodolfo), Wm. Clay Thompson (Colline), and Lifan Deng (Schaunard) in rehearsal for Madison Opera’s “La Boh\u00e8me.”<\/p>\n
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JULIA SIMPSON<\/span> \u201cI think having all of us have had that part in our life definitely is an asset for this production.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Richardson, a Philadelphia-based soprano who plays Mim\u00ec and has sung the role before, the play brings her back to a summer she spent in New York and her \u201cBohemian lifestyle\u201d then, which consisted of walking everywhere and treating days she could get food from a halal cart as a luxury.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cLooking back, you didn\u2019t think that you were struggling,\u201d she said. \u201cYou were just like, \u2018we\u2019re artists.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\n <\/p>\nKyle White (Marcello), Terrence Chin-Loy (Rodolfo) and members of the Madison Opera Chorus in rehearsal for Madison Opera’s “La Boh\u00e8me.”<\/p>\n
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JULIA SIMPSON<\/span> Since beginning rehearsals Oct. 18 under the direction of Alison Pogorelc, the four have had to learn the staging as well as how to work together. White and Richardson performed in Wolf Trap Opera\u2019s 2024 production of Mozart\u2019s \u201cCos\u00ec fan tutte\u201d \u2014 which Madison Opera will put on next April \u2014 but many of them met less than two weeks ago and have had to build chemistry quickly.\u00a0<\/p>\n
White says that a particular struggle they faced was reconciling their visions of the production to reality once they all began rehearsing together. Individual line readings differed from how they had practiced at home, and the addition of staging proved both mentally and physically challenging.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI sing an aria in the show that I\u2019ve done for many years,\u201d Secor said, \u201cbut I\u2019ve never rehearsed that aria (while) sprinting around and throwing things and pushing people.\u201d<\/p>\n
In all, the rehearsal process has gone smoothly, the principals say, and the history and fame of \u201cLa Boh\u00e8me\u201d does not weigh heavy on them. Instead, Richardson says it energizes her and encourages her to go all in.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know what people are thinking when they\u2019re coming to see this opera,\u201d Richardson said. \u201cYou know the expectations of this opera, and when you truly commit and do it, it\u2019s just so great.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not just only proving things to myself, but just also making sure that the audience gets to have that experience of knowing why people say this is one of\u00a0the\u00a0operas.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source captimes.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When \u201cLa Boh\u00e8me\u201d premiered in 1896 it was met with\u00a0criticism and hushed whispers\u00a0that the opera would not survive long. Nearly 130 years later, Giaocomo Puccini\u2019s opera is one of the most famous operas in the world.\u00a0 At Madison Opera \u201cBoh\u00e8me\u201d has been a staple, performed five times throughout the company\u2019s 65-year history, with the last […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2126762,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2126761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Madison-Operas-\u2018La-Boheme-is-a-tale-as-old-as.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2126761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2126761"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2126761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2126763,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2126761\/revisions\/2126763"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2126762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2126761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2126761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2126761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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