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Palm Beach Bohemians Palm Beach
Kravis Center for the Performing Arts
01/23/2026 - & January 24, 25, 2026
Giacomo Puccini: La bohème
Edward Parks (Marcello), Liparit Avestiyan*/Oreste Cosimo (Rodolfo), Solomon Howard (Colline), Mario Manzo (Schaunard), Donald Maxwell (Benoît, Alcindoro), Anita Hartig*/Yunuet Laguna (Mimi), Sydney Mancasola (Musetta), Randy Ho (Parpignol), Erik Tofte (Customhouse Sergeant), Nathan Savant (Customhouse Officer)
Palm Beach Opera Orchestra and Chorus, Vincenzo Milletarì (conductor)
Peter Kazaras (director), Seattle Opera (sets), Opéra de Montréal Costume Shop (costumes), Stuart Duke (lights) 
A. Hartig (© Fanny Bergé)
An old joke about Palm Beach, one of America’s richest communities and home to President Donald Trump, reports a new arrival saying “Before I moved here, I thought I was old and rich. But now that I am here I feel young and poor!” With dozens of resident billionaires now calling the island community home, and Florida enjoying a Renaissance in the arts amid booming economic growth, Palm Beach plays by its own rules. Its opera company, one of the most successful regional companies in America, boasts ever‑rising sales and, at this opening night, a longer than ever list of six‑figure donors. Staging La Bohème, Giacomo Puccini’s time‑tested story of love and loss among artists in nineteenth‑century Paris, seemed almost ironic. Yet five years ago, the last time Palm Beach Opera performed the work, the company was ahead of the global curve on returning to live performance amid the Covid‑19 pandemic, presenting a dream cast in an outdoor format.
This year’s revival, directed with insightful flair by the celebrated tenor turned director Peter Kazaras, hews to the company’s winning preference for standard repertoire works presented in visually pleasing productions, in this case was highly traditional sets by the Seattle Opera and accoutrements from Opéra de Montréal. Like the Metropolitan Opera’s iconic production by Franco Zeffirelli, which is now nearly half a century old, no one would guess we were anywhere other than where the story should take place. The sets are solid and accommodate both the intimacy of the artists’ garret and the sprawl of the Latin Quarter street scene where love is born and reborn.
Almost the entirely principal cast was making its Palm Beach debut. This included the internationally acclaimed Romanian soprano Anita Hartig, whose Mimi was anchored in a firm, resonant middle register that supported beautifully formed high notes raising passion to the stratosphere. Her Rodolfo, the Armenian and Russian‑trained Liparit Avestiyan, got off to a shaky start but quickly found his way to warm and endearing tones. In an audience of plutocrats, by the end of the evening one felt great sympathy for the doomed lovers. The stentorian baritone Edward Parks, perhaps the evening’s most gifted actor in addition to his fine singing, scaled Marcello’s romantically tortured soul alongside the wily but compassionately nuanced Musetta of the fine mezzo Sydney Mancasola, who is building a well‑deserved international career.
The Scottish baritone Donald Maxwell, who is nearly 80, was the dean of the supporting cast, pulling off expert characterization as the landlord Benoît and Musetta’s sugar daddy Alcindoro. The remaining Bohemians juxtaposed a topline singer, the resonant bass Solomon Howard, as the philosopher Colline, and the Palm Beach Opera’s promising young artist Mario Manzo as the musician Schaunard. The young conductor Vincenzo Milletarì led an embracingly warm performance from the company’s excellent orchestra.
Paul du Quenoy
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