In a piece of good news for opera-starved Canberrans, Canberra Theatre has announced a professional production of Puccini’s La Bohème for July.

Since mid-July last year Opera Australia has been touring the production, directed by Dean Bryant, of the popular opera, performed in the original Italian and updated to the 1970s at its most Bohemian, with stage and costume designs by Isabel Hudson to match.

Bryant, whose production of Leonard Bernstein’s Candide has been raising eyebrows in Sydney this year, grew up in the Victorian town of Shepparton, and is enthusiastic about touring high-quality, live theatre to audiences outside Sydney and Melbourne.

La Bohème, one of the top box-office attractions in any opera-house’s repertoire, is an evergreen opera about young artists starving in the garrets of Paris, with the central star-crossed lovers – consumptive Mimi and poet Rodolpho – providing the poignant drama.

But their colourful bunch of artist friends throw in a good deal of mischief, so it’s well worth reading the English surtitles, as much of this opera is very funny.

No doubt it’s the tragic side and the heartrending music that keep the audiences coming back for more, but the story is memorable, too, and has been plundered by other creators for musical theatre pieces such as Jonathan Larsons’s Rent and Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge.

It’s got “hit” written all over it.

La Bohème, Canberra Theatre, July 17-19.