El Paso Opera Brings Bohemios Tour to City Neighborhoods This Weekend

I first fell in love with opera through a Looney Tunes episode. Bugs Bunny in a Viking helmet, Elmer Fudd chasing him through Wagner. I was a kid and I had no idea what I was watching, but something about the drama of it, the way the music did things words could not, got its hooks in me.

My dad listened to and watched everything. That was just the household. So by the time I found opera, I already had room for it. I spent years on YouTube watching Maria Callas hold an entire theater hostage with nothing but her voice. Watching Pavarotti sing like the room itself was grateful. And I was also listening to Cypress Hill, watching Speed Racer, and finding out that Weezer named an entire album after Madama Butterfly. None of that felt like a contradiction.

Eventually that love took me somewhere I did not see coming. I spent three years working for Opera Omaha, a renowned professional opera company in Nebraska. I hosted and emceed their Opera To Go concerts, free pop-up performances in city parks where opera singers appeared out in the open for anyone curious enough to stop and listen.

I am telling you all of this because El Paso Opera is doing exactly that. And it starts this weekend.

What Is El Paso Opera's Opera en la Comunidad?

El Paso Opera has launched a new initiative called Opera en la Comunidad, a free, citywide touring program built on a simple but powerful idea: opera should not be something audiences have to seek out. It should find them.

The program brings live performances to neighborhoods across the city, staging productions at community centers, parks, and cultural institutions rather than a traditional concert hall. Entry is free. The performers come to you.

Kicking off this weekend is a tour of Bohemios, a Spanish zarzuela described by El Paso Opera as having "a borderland twist." Featuring the company's Artist Ambassadors alongside an all-local cast and crew, the production will hit four different venues across El Paso over four days.

Reserved tickets have already been claimed, but El Paso Opera has held back 25 percent of capacity at each venue for walk-ins. Audiences can also visit epopera.org/events to join the waitlist for any reserved seats that open up.

What Is a Zarzuela?

Before diving into Bohemios specifically, it helps to understand what a zarzuela actually is, because it is one of the most misunderstood and underappreciated art forms in the Spanish-speaking world.

Zarzuela is a Spanish musical play combining spoken dialogue, songs, choruses, and dances. It originated in the 1650s as an aristocratic entertainment, first performed at the royal residence of La Zarzuela near Madrid. The genre was innovative in giving a dramatic function to the musical numbers, which were woven directly into the plot rather than performed separately, with dances, choruses, and solo and ensemble numbers all set to orchestral accompaniment.

Think of it as Spain's answer to the Broadway musical, except it predates Broadway by roughly 300 years. The characters are common people, dashing gallants, shop girls, and coquettes who flirt their way through life. To appeal to the regional diversity of Spain, zarzuela composers blended catchy folk music into comic dramas that alternated singing, spoken dialogue, and dancing.

It is not opera in the strict Italian sense, and it is not purely theater. It lives somewhere beautifully in between.

What Is Bohemios?

In 1904, even as Spain was politically unstable, composer Amadeo Vives found peace in celebrating freedom and the carefree artistic life of the mid-1800s. He looked to the past to capture that spirit in Bohemios, with passionate lyrics by Guillermo Perrin and Miguel de Palacios supporting his vision of a love-filled world.

Bohemios draws from the same literary source as Puccini's La Boheme, the novel Scenes de la vie de boheme by Henri Murger, published between 1844 and 1849. Unlike the famous Italian opera, however, Bohemios ends happily.

Vives shaped that familiar source material through French rather than Italian musical influences, along with his own growing artistic voice. The result is something distinctly Spanish, warmer in its humor and more grounded in everyday life than the tragic grandeur of La Boheme.

When Bohemios premiered in March 1904 at the Teatro de la Zarzuela in Madrid, critics received it with enthusiasm, noting that it entertained audiences and drew sustained applause. Within a month it had opened in Barcelona, where the audience reportedly rose to their feet in an overwhelming response. More than a century later, the work remains in active repertoire across Spain and Latin America.

Why This Matters for El Paso

El Paso sits at the intersection of Spanish-language culture, border identity, and a deep artistic heritage that rarely gets the recognition it deserves. Bringing a zarzuela, a Spanish musical theater form with roots in the 17th century and a living tradition across Latin America, to community centers and city parks is nothing short of incredible.

The production will be sung in Spanish with dialogue in English, making it accessible to the city's bilingual audiences while honoring the work's origins.

Bohemios Tour Schedule

El Paso Opera's Bohemios plays four shows across four days. Walk-ins are welcome at each venue, with 25 percent of capacity reserved for those without tickets.

• Thursday, May 28 at 6:00 PM | Consulado General de Mexico, 901 E San Antonio, El Paso, TX 79901
• Friday, May 29 at 12:30 PM | Sylvia A. Carreon Recreation Center, 709 Lomita Dr., El Paso, TX 79907
• Saturday, May 30 at 12:30 PM | The Beast Recreation Center, 13501 Jason Crandall Dr., El Paso, TX 79938
• Sunday, May 31 at 7:00 PM | Keystone Heritage Park, 4200 Doniphan Dr., El Paso, TX 79922

All performances are free. For waitlist access to reserved seats, visit epopera.org/events.