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The modest wooden door in the high garden wall opens into El Rio y La Paloma No. 2 in the distant and dusty San Miguel outpost of Los Frailes. Stepping through the portal feels a bit like Dorothy stepping out of Auntie Em’s farmhouse into Oz.

Behind this wall is indeed another world so unexpected and beautiful as to momentarily throw you off balance.

The path before you leads to a distinguished columned building in the Greek Revival style — now to become an opera house. To the left is a fountain with a sculpture of Hercules riding the back of a dolphin. In the distance, another fountain celebrates Dionysius. To the right is an Italian villa and beside it is a weighty and somber stone Medieval tower.

All of these structures seem to float off the ground in an Edenic garden of uncommonly lush beauty.

The first impulse of the visitor is to wonder, “How I can live here amid this architectural splendor? Like for the rest of my life!”

There is little time for such thinking as the two people who do live here, John and Joy Bitner, come forward to warmly embrace me like a long-lost brother. They are that kind of people. If you are not an old friend of theirs, you will feel like one in short order.

It is only after the greetings that you notice there are a handful of folding chairs and tables on the grounds and a small group of people — including two opera singers, Karla Pineda and Omar Molina — are hauling stacks and stacks of glistening white chairs up to the entrance of the Greek edifice.

As a musical backdrop to all this, Dante Ochoa is inside tuning the Yamaha grand piano for tonight’s performance. With his left hand on the tuning wrench, he is giving each key a slight twist,  following up with four and five plunks on the corresponding ivory, then executing a brief glissando and a test run on an appropriate chord. Each key – key by key – is being painstakingly harnessed to perfection for tonight’s performance of Puccini’s “La Bohème.”

Inside the central great room where Dante tunes the piano, a stage is taking shape beside the massive and ornate fireplace. Arranged on a riser are a table, two ladder-back chairs, and an armchair. A few steps away, another chair rests beside an easel supporting a painting, no doubt the work of Marcello, an art student and one of the four bohemians who share a shabby apartment in “La Bohème.”

Even as I write this, as many as 90 chairs will be arranged around this setting. They will all be filled tonight. And Saturday night. And likely Friday night (as there were only 20 seats remaining as of Thursday morning).

Quite a show of support for the debut performance in this venue by the San Miguel opera studio Operisima Mexico, under the musical direction of founder Rogelio Riojas-Nolasco. The venue is appropriately named Villa Puccini MusikHaus, a reflection of the love of opera by John and Joy Bitner.

Also appropriately, this year marks the 100th anniversary of the death of Giacomo Puccini. 

“La Bohème” is set in the wintery Paris of Puccini’s imagination where the struggling poet Rodolfo falls in love with his equally poor neighbor Mimi when she knocks on his door seeking a light for her candle. Rodolfo’s roommates – Schaunard (a musician), Colline (a philosophy student), and the aforementioned Marcello – had all departed for the local tavern Cafe Momus for a night of debauchery, or as much as they could afford on student budgets.

Rodolfo and Mimi try to make a go of it in the gray world of Parisian poverty. It isn’t easy. Rodolfo’s roommates burn his pages of poetry to keep warm. Marcello’s on-again off-again girlfriend Musette vacillates between the comforts of a sugar daddy and the love of a poor painter.

Rodolfo’s and Mimi’s own course is diverted by the debilitating tuberculosis that she contracts, and which drives Rodolfo to despair as he cannot afford to care for her. Mimi has her own fling with a wealthy Viscount but returns to the arms of Rodolfo in the end.

Most of the performers were in the cast when Operisima Mexico staged “La Bohème” last year in Centro at Casa Europa. That is where the Bitners first met Rogelio Riojas-Nolasco and fell in love with the opera studio performers.

Villa Puccini was created exactly for artistic endeavors like Operisima Mexico, said John Bitner. In fact, John designed the building himself in partnership with San Miguel architect Javier Mojarro, paying special attention to the interior acoustics with live performances in mind. Indeed, before the Covid lockdown, the Bitners held a number of musical performances and fundraisers in Villa Puccini.

Once they experienced the talented performers in Operisima Mexico, the Bitners realized Villa Puccini was meant to be Rodolfo to their Mimi.

“We want to make this the home of Operisima Mexico,” said John Bitner. “It is theirs to use for rehearsals, performances, and even fundraisers.”

The opera studio itself is a little more than one year old in San Miguel. Rogelio has founded opera studios in several Mexico cities following a decades-long globe-hopping career while based in Europe as an opera coach. An accomplished pianist who speaks several languages, Rogelio’s forte is shaping the raw opera singer into the character you see onstage.

“I work with the language and pronunciation – often Italian, German, or French – as well as the style of the character and the interpretation. I help the singer realize the vocal demands of the role.”

“We are not an opera company. We are an opera studio,” he adds.

In an opera company, a young singer may get one role a year to perform and subsist on small parts in a handful of other performances during a season.

The opera studio consists of 22 singers and because Rogelio envisions a year-round slate of opera performances, aria concerts, and competitions – these talented young souls from all over Mexico, Panama, Italy, and more will gain the extraordinary exposure only elite singers experience on stage.

“A singer develops on stage, not in a classroom,” said Rogelio.

On the “down” side, the intimate setting of Villa Puccini offers no conductor, no prompters, no stage managers, and no elaborate sets. “I can prepare them up to a point but they really have to know what they are doing,” said Rogelio. “In the end, you are alone there (on the stage). I’m only the pianist playing along with you.”

Rogelio describes this trial by fire as a “cruel but really good way” to become a professional opera singer.

It must work. Several of his performers have gone on to do well in opera competitions around the world recently.

In this first year, Rogelio Riojas-Nolasco has struggled to establish Operisima Mexico. There is no money, no grants for students. Some of the studio members sing on the streets of San Miguel to make ends meet. Many share flats to cut expenses – much like the characters in “La Bohème.”

It is all as Rogelio Riojas-Nolasco expected when he arrived here in late 2022 to start Operisima Mexico on a shoestring. “You must get the people to trust you first,” he said. “You have to show them first what we can do.”

This weekend’s trio of sold-out performances in this stunning venue, their new home, feels like a major turning point upward in the trajectory of Operisima Mexico. The organization is close to establishing its non-profit credentials and patrons like the Bitners are rallying around the troupe.

If you weren’t able to get seats for “La Bohème” know that there is more to come, starting with “Cosi Fan Tutti” in February.  Rogelio Riojas-Nolasco’s vision of year-round opera performances in San Miguel has just begun.