Tacoma Opera will stage the classic, much-loved opera La Boheme in its original Italian, although there will be English subtitles provided for the unwashed heathens in the audience who don't know the story of young love with a tragic ending - as all operas seem to have. Uncultured Gen Xers will better know the story as Rent, a high-quality blockbuster knockoff of the earlier Puccini work.

According to Tacoma Opera hype, "La Bohème is an intimate story. Whether you see it at the Metropolitan Opera House or at the Rialto, it's a story about small things. It's about a candle that goes out, and a lost key. It's about an author with writer's block and a girl who lives alone and makes silk flowers. It's about a painter and his girlfriend who can't stop fighting long enough to realize how desperately they need each other. It's about a coat, and a muff, and a pink bonnet. It is a story about many small things and one really big thing."

[Rialto Theater, Friday, March 30 8 p.m., Sunday, April 1 2 p.m., $25 an dup, 310 S. Ninth St., Tacoma, 253.627.7789]