A world-class role like Mimì in “La bohème” deserves a world-class soprano, and the Lyric has found one in Maria Agresta. “One could go a lifetime and never encounter a more moving performance of Mimì than that given by Maria Agresta Saturday night,” Lawrence A. Johnson of Chicago Classical Review wrote of her October run at the Lyric.

“The final scene was so affecting, so beautifully sung and realistically acted by Agresta, you could put it on film. She made Mimì’s last moments almost unbearably heartbreaking, even to the professional cynics in the audience.” One of her signature roles, Agresta’s Mimì has earned similar acclaim at the Metropolitan Opera, La Scala, the Royal Opera in London, Opéra National de Paris, the Verona Arena and the major houses of Vienna, Munich and Venice.