Stagehands now go about their business quickly so as to avoid intrusive applause. And revival director Katherine Carter has moderated some of the excesses that marred the original outing overseen by John Caird. Well, be thankful for small mercies: The scenes were still recognizably those the opera we travelled downtown to see. The idea, I think, is to stress the artificiality of the operatic experience. An array of his patchy and mediocre canvases become, rather messily, the flats and backdrops of the show. Sets by David Farley represent not Paris but the painter Marcello’s evocation of the city. But not Wednesday night in the Four Seasons Centre, where the Canadian Opera Company revived a 2013 production that comes equipped with a concept but is not burdened with enough directorial baggage to compromise the good singing and committed acting of a well-chosen cast. Somewhere, sometime, La Bohème might have failed.

A scene from the Canadian Opera Company’s production of La Bohème, 2019. Canadian Opera Company’s revamped 2013 production of La Bohème comes equipped with an unfettered concept, fine singing, and a committed cast.

La boheme opera in us 2019