The Ticino Musica Festival returns to the LAC with a new production by the “Silvio Varviso” International Opera Studio, an opera workshop that each year brings together young singers and instrumentalists selected through international auditions. For the 2026 edition, the project tackles Puccini’s La bohème: an opera in which everyday life, the dreams of youth and the fragility of love take shape through a theatrical score of extraordinary immediacy.

An integral part of Ticino Musica’s artistic and training programme, the “Silvio Varviso” International Opera Studio offers young singers at the start of their careers the opportunity to study and perform an opera from the operatic repertoire under the guidance of industry professionals. The production is conceived and developed entirely in Ticino and features performers selected through international auditions, accompanied by the Ticino Musica Ensemble, comprising young instrumentalists from various countries.
For 2026, the Opera Studio presents Giacomo Puccini’s La bohème, with direction, set design and costumes by Daniele Piscopo and artistic direction by Umberto Finazzi. Since its premiere in 1896, the opera has become one of the most beloved works in the repertoire, thanks to its ability to weave together light-heartedness and tragedy, irony and melancholy. Based on Henri Murger’s Scènes de la vie de bohème, it recounts the lives of young artists in nineteenth-century Paris: a fragile yet vibrant world, marked by friendship, precariousness and desire, in which Puccini alternates intimate episodes and ensemble scenes with great theatrical fluidity.