The poet Rodolfo, the painter Marcello, the philosopher Colline and the musician Schaunard live in an attic apartment in Paris. Despite financial hardship, the four friends are hedonists and will occasionally burn a manuscript to warm themselves. When Rodolfo meets Mimì, he is instantly enraptured by his pretty neighbour. But their love is of short duration: Mimì is incurably ill, and Rodolfo seems almost incapable of entering into a committed relationship… In his fourth and perhaps most popular opera, Giacomo Puccini reveals an entire range of emotions and moods of young people. The discrepancy between the glittering Christmas party at the Café Momus and the events in the austere artists’ attic is at once astonishing and harrowing. Conductor Nello Santi will conduct the revival production, and the Russian soprano Ekaterina Sherbachenko, winner of the renowned BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition, can be heard as Mimì. Giuseppe Filianoti will play Rodolfo, and the Swiss bass-baritone Ruben Drole will be débuting as Marcello.