After the Rapture occurs, a pilot must struggle to keep control of a plane while his family on the ground tries to deal with the effects of millions of Christians disappearing.

Puccini's bittersweet opera of high-spirited bohemians and the doomed love between Rodolfo, the idealistic poet and Mimi, the consumptive flower-maker, is a beautifully balanced series of tableaux depicting the infectious joie de vivre of youth and the tragic waste of disease and separation.