Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy and girl try to work things out but girl dies: this is the heartbreaking emotional arc at the center of Puccini’s ‘La bohème’, by far the one of the most popular and frequently staged operas in the world. But in Boston Lyric Opera’s new production of “Bohemian,” a co-production with Detroit Opera and the Spoleto Festival USA, director Yuval Sharon puts the tragedy in a literal spin; acts are performed in reverse order. The evening opens with the heartbreaking final act, which ends with the brief reunion of lovers Rodolfo and Mimì before Mimì dies of tuberculosis. It ends with the first chance meeting of the same couple, and the curtain falls with the word “love” floating in the Parisian night.

If you’re skeptical, you had the same initial reaction as me. It’s a cheap gimmick, I thought at first: they want to do ‘Bohemian’ but they want to make it look new, so Sharon plays it experimental just because he can. I may have rolled my eyes reading Spoleto’s website page for the production: “What if life didn’t end in death, but in a return to love?”

But after spending Friday night at the Emerson Colonial Theater, I’m no longer an naysayer. As John Conklin’s minimal circular set rotated between acts to literally turn back time, a fragment of TS Eliot’s “Little Gidding” rang in my head: “We won’t stop exploring/and the end of all our explorations/will be to arrive where we started/and know the place for the first time.” Long story short: the upside-down “Bohème” is actually pretty good.

Even before the unconventional approach proved successful, the cast immediately put on a stellar performance. BLO newcomer Edward Parks showed up with a rowdy, charismatic Marcello, a good match for Chelsea Basler’s free-barreled Musetta. As Rodolfo, Jesus Garcia’s high end was somewhat worn, but he inhabited the character with such a robust spectrum of emotion that it was impossible not to fall in love with Mimì – a truly luminous Lauren Michelle, without notes – with him.

Colline and Schaunard by William Guanbo Su and Benjamin Taylor refused to fade away as so many Collines and Schaunard do outside of the brief moments in the spotlight that the libretto affords them. There was a warm, well-worn affection between them that made me wonder if they were boyfriends and boyfriends, and a change in one of Schaunard’s lines (usually he charms a maid; the Friday supertitles said it was a butler) cemented that in my mind. I was disappointed that the scene in which the bohemian boys cheat on their unfortunate rent owner was omitted. I wanted to spend more time with this friendly quartet.

A lot more things worked than not in Sharon’s approach, but there were a few sticking points. The set creaked loudly with each rotation, adding unwanted noise to several scenes that were otherwise enhanced by movement. The White-suited Wanderer, a talking character added for this production and played here by Opera unMet’s Marshall Hughes, was clearly intended to be an omniscient narrator in the style of the stage manager in “Our Town” or Hermes in “Hadestown.” , but several times he interrupted the chant to reflect (in English) “Now, what would have happened if…” a character had made a different decision? The music, and the excellent interpretations of the characters by the cast , already invited the audience to ask themselves the question, so the didactic commentary was initially confusing and boring by the end.

However, these were small missteps in what was overall an exciting shift in perspective for the Warhorse opera, which shed new light on many of its calling cards. When I see “Bohemian” knowing that Mimì will die at the end, I prepare myself as soon as she enters the attic with her candle extinguished: at BLO, knowing that Mimì was already dead, everything that happened was imbued with a bittersweet atmosphere. When Rodolfo rocked a never-before-seen pink beanie in Friday’s Act 1, which is usually Act 4, it was immediately apparent that he was significant, unlike his first appearance in the standard version. When a dying Mimì assured Marcello with some of her last words that Musetta was a good person, it didn’t seem like a moment of last-minute redemption, but a question that would be duly answered. And when Mimì briefly hesitated to follow Rodolfo to Café Momus as the Wanderer loomed ominously in the background, it no longer heralded an inevitable tragedy, but chided him in the name of life while it can still be lived.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think that was how it was originally written,” said my concert buddy, a newcomer to opera, as we left the theater.

So don’t stop exploring: see this “Bohemian”, and know the place for the first time.

BOHEMIAN

At the Emerson Colonial Theatre. Until October 2. 617-542-6772, www.blo.org

AZ Madonna can be contacted at [email protected] Follow her on Twitter @knitandlisten .