San Diego Opera rolled out stellar soprano talent for Giacomo Puccini’s La bohème on opening night of their 60th anniversary season. Just back from winning First Prize at Operalia and her Birgit Nilsson Prize win in Mumbai India, and making her role and house debut, soprano Kathleen O’Mara put on a confident rendition of the seamstress Mimì. O’Mara’s singing was powerful with sustained high notes and a rich middle register. She easily enchanted the audience.

O’Mara’s Mimì faced a particular challenge in this production by stage director Keturah Stickann, because she is imagined as a ghostly memory to the poet Rodolfo as he reflects and daydreams about their brief relationship that ends with her illness and death. With the help of ghoulish lighting by designer Chris Rynne, a pale and barefoot O’Mara rose to the challenge of playing the distant phantom. She glided slowly across the stage without expression, as one could imagine a ghost doing. Yet her beautiful singing often came close to bringing her to life in Rodolfo’s memory. He repeatedly, and heartbreakingly, would try to touch her and embrace her, unsuccessfully.

But two star sopranos are better than one for a special anniversary so San Diego Opera brought in Latonia Moore to sing Musetta. Moore, who is better known for dramatic roles such as Aida and Cio-Cio San in Madama Butterfly, expertly portrayed a playful and flirtatious Musetta, hamming it up to attract her on-again-off-again lover Marcello’s attention. Moore displayed her talent as a comic actress who could credibly pivot to heart-wrenching drama in the final scene when she showed her tenderness and unselfishness as she sacrificed her earrings to exchange for medicine for Mimì. Moore can effortlessly convey both the comic and the dramatic with her beautiful and flexible soprano. I do not have enough superlatives to describe Moore’s rich, clear, precise and beautifully rounded voice but suffice it to say she is for me one of the best sopranos singing currently.

Stickann’s production evolved from her 2020 presentation of La bohème during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic when distancing rules did not allow singers to be closer than 15 feet of each other without being masked. San Diego Opera presented La bohème in a drive-in setting, producing live opera to an audience starved for it. Stickann’s set was simple and spare, placing the focus on the story the singers were telling.

Tenor Joshua Blue also made his house debut as Rodolfo. Blue’s singing was at times powerful as his voice reached some impressive highs. His performance was dramatic and evocative. Leroy Davis, who also made his debut at San Diego Opera, sang the role of Musetta’s lover Marcello with a warm baritone and played the role of the painter with comic flair. Bass Harold Wilson proved to be a highlight of the evening as the philosopher Colline. He brought tears to my eyes in his rendition of “Addio, vecchio zimarra”, saying goodbye to his old winter coat that he would sell to pay for medicine for Mimi as she was dying. Baritones Søren Pedersen and Michael Sokol rounded out the cast as Schaunard and Alcindoro, respectively. Sokol provided comic relief with a wig that kept sliding off his otherwise hairless head.

The opera was slightly cut. The comic scene in Act I with the landlord Benoit coming to collect rent from the impoverished roommates was missing. There was also no children’s chorus, although the San Diego Opera Chorus sang off-stage near the front of the theater under the direction of Bruce Stasyna. Lidya Yankovskaya’s precise and energetic conducting made this retelling of La bohème come alive. Yankovskaya was also making her house debut.

La Boheme also opened San Diego Opera’s first season in 1965. Soprano Sarah Tucker and Tenor César Delgado were scheduled to sing Mimì and Rodolfo in La Boheme for the November 2nd performance.