It isn't every season that an audience has a chance to see both "Rent" and the opera that inspired it. But thanks to Raleigh's Best of Broadway series and the Durham-based Triangle Opera, the opportunity exists here -- as it does in New York.

Triangle Opera opens a new "La Boheme" in May at the Carolina Theatre, just a month after a touring production of "Rent" plays Raleigh Memorial Auditorium. David O'Dell, general director of the Triangle Opera, expects the rock opera to pique interest in the Puccini original. By comparing the two, audiences can see how the present embraces the past.

"Puccini's score is lush and intense and gripping," says O'Dell, "but I think the story is at the heart of the opera, and the story is timeless."

O'Dell expects the connection to be especially clear in his company's staging, which is he says will be the first major professional mounting of "Boheme" in the Triangle.

"Ours is going to be a very lean production and closer, I think, to what you will see in 'Rent,' " he says. "We'll probably go period in costume ... but what we want to do is get through the muck of lavish production techniques. We want it to be beautifully lit and simply set, but we want the story to come through."

Rock opera and classical opera are both on a roll as a new generation embraces the idea of stories in song. O'Dell believes that the opera audience's growth of the past 20 years is partially because of MTV.

"Suddenly, we have a generation that associates stories with music and pictures," he says. "It's a very visual art form, and it's something that the MTV generation is extremely comfortable with right now. The popularity of 'Les Miserables' and 'The Phantom of the Opera' certainly has bolstered interest in the art form. We're riding a crest."