This week the Vancouver Opera offers opera lovers--and everyone else--a real treat: Puccini's La Bohème.

Puccini’s masterpiece is one of the most popular operas of all time. It was the first opera I ever saw, and I loved it. I wasn’t an opera aficionada then, and I’m not now, but you don’t have to be to enjoy this piece. The love story is straightforward, and the music is so famous you already know it, even if you have no experience with opera. In particular, the aria "O soave fanciulla” (“Oh gentle maiden") has been used in so many movies—A Room With a View springs immediately to mind—that you’ll recognize it immediately.

Performances are April 26, 29, May 1, 3, 6, 8, 2008, at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre. Tickets are available at the Vancouver Opera’s site.

And don’t worry about the Italian lyrics; English translations are projected above the stage.

_{Image Courtesy of Vancouver Opera}