GIACOMO Puccini set his musical dramatisation of “Scenes de la vie de boheme” in the Paris sketched by the author of his source, Henry Murger. Paris, in France; not Paisley.

But that small detail is not about to stop Paisley Opera (motto: Passion Not Posh) from opening in Paisley on a Friday night with a production very obviously set in Paisley on a Friday night.

Having launched in 2017 with an original work, The Witches of Paisley, which arrived at exactly the right time to be part of the bid process for City of Culture, and then lending some of its newly-discovered local talent to Scottish Opera’s acclaimed Pagliacci-in-a-tent in Paisley’s Seedhill Sports Ground last year, Paisley Opera has moved on to one of the classics of the opera repertoire, La Boheme – but entirely on its own terms.

Although Puccini’s opera is well over 100 years old, its theme of love-on-the-breadline is timeless and universal. So Paisley Opera commissioned a brand new English translation of the libretto from Lindsay Bramley, and she consulted the chorus-members over details of the local vernacular to create a version of the doomed love of Mimi and Rudolfo that is set in Paisley and right now. The food and the drink, the toys and the clothes, the patter and the insults, are all instantly recognisable – and making opera accessible is what Paisley Opera is all about. The new libretto is full of memorable lines, like Schaunard’s assessment of Musetta’s wealthy beau Alcindoro: “What a spanner! Where did she find him?”

In the Parish Hall of St Mirin’s Cathedral, the company has gathered for rehearsal. The principals have been working on their parts in Glasgow all afternoon with conductor Alistair Digges, and now they are combining with the chorus and young people director Fiona Williams has found through schools workshops, to run through the wonderful Act 2 of Puccini’s masterpiece. It was one of the main reasons the team chose Boheme as their first full-length repertoire work.

“Act 2 is one of the best pieces of theatre ever written,” says Williams unequivocally. “There is so much going on, and so much for the performers to get their teeth into. Rather than have the chorus work as a single unit, we have the chance to give people individual roles alongside the big chorus numbers, so people are cast as specific characters.”

She is not alone in her assessment of the wonder of the Café Momus sequence in La Boheme. In his biography of Puccini, critic Conrad Wilson wrote: “In Boheme the music is the action, and the action the music, in a manner new to opera. This is what makes the vividly exact musical depiction of every incident in Act 2 unique in operatic history.”

Baritone Simon Hannigan, a regular with Scottish Opera and elsewhere, established the company after moving to Paisley with his wife and finding a community spirit that matched his desire to found a community opera company.

“The whole thing about Paisley Opera is trying to make opera accessible and we wanted to do something that was not too long and had a strong, powerful story that we could easily update.”

Adds Williams: “We were looking for was a piece that would be musically fantastic, and give some young professional singers really juicy roles, but also give us a different way of engaging with our audience.

“When we performed Witches in Paisley Abbey it was a front-on presentation, while this has a promenade feel to Act 2 & 3, and Lindsay Bramley has done an amazing job, with the input of the chorus, in creating a piece that is for Paisley in 2019, in the language of it. That has been an important interactive process.”

Williams has been part of the creative team in Paisley with Hannigan since the pair worked together on a production of Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra in Fulham and Paisley Opera was only a germ of an idea.

Says Hannigan: “We wanted a genuinely community-based company, so we put stuff out on Facebook and put posters up in shops asking people to come and join Paisley Opera – it doesn’t matter if you have never sung before. It was coincidental that it happened at the same time as the City of Culture bid, but fortunate because Renfrewshire Council were putting money into artistic ventures and they generously funded the first show and now a large part of this one too. It was a very happy coincidence.

“At our first meeting 27 people turned up, and we now have really strong core of people who love it and love singing. Surprisingly few were from other choirs, and a lot just fancied trying singing and had never been to an opera. One of our tenors came up to me after one of our pop-up performances at the Piazza in Paisley and asked if it was OK if came along although he had only ever sung on the football terraces. He’s great and really throws himself into it.

“Witches was the first experience on a stage for many of the chorus, and then Scottish Opera came and did Pagliacci, which a lot of our people did, and that was a great experience. The fact that we were on their doorstep was good for Scottish Opera too, and that has made our singers more ready to do this.”

Williams echoes how the work of the company has developed: “Witches was written specially, and a blend of poetry, dialogue and music with big choruses that fitted the drama. This is a completely different beast and in the process the company as a whole has become much more cohesive.

“You get to know different personalities and different voices that you can work with. There is a real spirit that has developed over the last 18 months, and I think that will come across in the central section of Boheme.”

In the church hall there is evidence aplenty of that being the case, as the challenging ebb and flow of Act 2 is bashed into shape, with trestle tables, crutches and imaginary trolleys pressed into service as improvised set and props occupying the whole notional stage space. Director Fiona Williams and conductor Alistair Digges are more interested in telling the company what has to be achieved and letting the performers find the best way to that result than in telling them what to do – and the fluid nature of the performance in rehearsal reflects exactly how the work will be staged at the University of the West of Scotland on Paisley High Street.

“Act 1, in the impoverished young artists’ flat, is on a thrust stage with a seated audience,” explains Williams. “Then we’ll bring people through into the big foyer space at UWS for the Christmas Market for Act 2, where you will actually be able to do some shopping. There will be a cake stall with real cakes for sale, and if you are very lucky Alan will sell you a beer.

“Act 3 will also play in that space, and then everyone will return to the intimacy of the flat for Act 4. So it is a mix of promenade and sit-and-watch, and people who come will get the chance to be both the audience and an interactive member of the crowd.”

With an 11 piece specially-assembled band of freelancers playing a reduced version of the score, the musicians will be part of the action as well, buskers who will be happy to accept donations flung into their instrument cases.

With its teacakes and Tennents, doner kebabs and chicken tikka, Playstation and X-box, River City and St Mirren, this Boheme may have come a long way from a garret in Paris, but the seeds of its interaction were sown by Puccini in his masterful Act 2 at the end of the 19th century.

Paisley Opera’s La Boheme is at the University of the West of Scotland, High Street, Paisley at 7pm on February 1 and 7 and 3pm on February 3 and 9.