Video: Go Backstage with LA BOHÈME at The Atlanta Opera

Take a look behind the scenes of "La bohème" and meet the talented cast, crew, artists, and technicians bringing The Atlanta Opera's production of Puccini's classic to life.

The opera unfolds a world of dreams, love, and artistic passion at Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre.

Giacomo Puccini’s transcendent masterpiece La bohème captures the essence of love, loss, and life. This tragic story of four friends clinging to each other as harsh realities of life threaten to tear them apart has been told time and again–now, discover its origin as one of the greatest operas ever written.

Acclaimed tenor Long Long joins the cast as Rodolfo in The Atlanta Opera’s heart-wrenching production that takes the stage at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre.

Puccini emerged into the twentieth century music world as the “King of Verismo,” not through the conducting background of Mascagni or through the skilled compositional ability of Giordano, but as a master of theater. Puccini wrote solely for the operatic stage and he understood the dramatic intensity and melodic poignancy of real life subject matter. Critics have sometimes dismissed his work as overly impassioned, melodramatic, and sentimental. The composer himself proclaimed, “The only music I can make is that of small things,” although he admired the grander stylistic abilities of Verdi and Wagner. Despite that admiration, Puccini chose to concentrate on life’s familiar bittersweet passions and intense emotional storms.