WEB EXTRA: Lyric's Artistic Director Talks Casting

The Lyric Opera of Kansas City's Artistic Director Ward Holmquist calls La boh?me "one of the great operas of the Western world." Holmquist says when the Lyric discussed presenting the work again, he was "revitalized" by the film Rent to consider casting younger performers.

By Laura Spencer

Kansas City, MO – Holmquist says, "I had in my head the wonderful images of the Chris Columbus film images of Rent. One of the things that I found so moving was the way that they had such high musical values and transitioned in and out of musical dialogue and story so well. And it made me think again about the original opera and how viable it was and how tightly written it is...How much hope there is in it. And how much life and how much joy and the joy of youth in following your artistic dreams. That was one of the things in terms of the casting that I wanted to see if we could find that again in this production."