Hyeseoung Kwon’s gorgeous Mimi shines in a fun-sized version of Puccini’s classic.

Mimi is a poor seamstress. Her apartment is tiny and poorly-built; she is constantly frozen by the Parisian winter winds. She is desperately lonely. She has an ominous cough. She spends almost her entire life trying to afford it. To top it all off, she has just made the mistake of walking into an opera by Puccini.

But she is more than just a tragic victim. On Christmas Eve, 1913, she knocks on the door of her boisterous neighbours, a bunch of hard-partying bankrupt pseudo-hippie artists and playwrights. She was walking in the poorly-lit streets outside her apartment when her candle blows out. She knocks on the door to get it relit – and immediately falls in love. So begins La Bohème, arguably the most tragic and unforgettable of Puccini’s operas.

Once again, the women were the stars of the show, particularly Kwon’s Mimi. Opera Queensland’s female casting has been consistently brilliant this year. La Bohème is worth the price of entry just to watch Kwon alone. As an actor, she is sublime. She is quietly flirtatious, subtly sexy. And yet she is a believably shy and introverted...