Iowa Public Radio’s Jacqueline Halbloom and co-host University of Iowa’s professor of voice, Dr. Katherine Eberle, present Iowa Public Radio’s Performance Iowa in a live broadcast of the Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre’s performance of La Boheme, on location from the newly restored Paramount Theatre. As one of Puccini’s most frequently performed operas, La Boheme tells the story of, love and youthful idealism touched with darker elements of poverty, illness and tragedy. Puccini based the opera on Henri Murger’s novel, La Vie de Boheme. Cast members include three Metropolitan Opera performers; Erica Strauss as Mimi, Meredith Hansen, as Musetta, and Eric Downs as Colline. Other cast members include Eric Barry as Rodolfo, Phillip Torre as Marcello, and Frederick Jackson as Schaunard.