By Emma Simpson BBC New York correspondent

In New York, one of the most anticipated shows on Broadway has its gala opening this weekend.

But it is an opera, not a play or a musical.

Baz Luhrmann, director of the hit movies Moulin Rouge and Strictly Ballroom, is staging a multi-million dollar production of Puccini's La Boheme.

It is the first time that classical opera has been brought to Broadway.

'Vulgar wishes'

Luhrmann's La Boheme is set in Paris, as Puccini intended, but has been updated to 1957.

There are echoes of Luhrmann's film Moulin Rouge, which starred Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor

The maverick Australian director has a knack of taking old genres and re-inventing them with passion and style.

The sets evoke Moulin Rouge - from the Parisian rooftop garret and its Bohemian characters, to the big red neon sign hovering over the stage.

But that is where the similarities end.

Like the original opera, La Boheme is sung in Italian, and not a musical note has been changed.

Luhrmann says he wants to revitalise opera and bring it to the masses: "When Puccini played it in 1894, it was this outrageously successful, scurrilous play, much like Sex in the City today or something like it.

"It was like television, and people laughed and they cried - they knew the characters, they knew the story and they came out exulted by the extraordinary music of Puccini. We're going to try to be that vulgar."

Unashamedly commercial

Luhrmann has also gone for a young, good-looking cast who are similar in age to the characters they are playing - unlike in conventional opera, where singers are often much older.

Three sets of singers allow nightly shows while protecting voices

But he is unashamedly commercial too.

Also unlike conventional opera, La Boheme has eight performances a week including matinees.

So Luhrmann had to cast three sets of singers to take the lead roles on different nights, in order to protect delicate vocal chords.

It took him nearly three years and thousands of auditions to find his lead performers.

Alfred Boe, from Hampshire in Britain, plays the writer Rodolfo.

He said starring in the production was a dream come true.

The push now within opera is to give it a younger feel

Singer David Miller

"Being a classically trained singer, you never really get the opportunity to do a show on Broadway for a start - to do work with a great director like Baz, it's just magical."

David Miller, an American from Colorado who also plays Rodolfo, said opera needed to broaden its appeal.

"The push now within opera is to give it a younger feel, to find people that are closer to the age group that they're trying to portray because it strips away a barrier," he said.

Movie marketing

So, La Boheme is being billed as opera for the masses.

It is being marketed here like a Hollywood movie.

Baz Luhrmann's desire to put opera on Broadway could be a risky project

Yet while La Boheme may have Baz Luhrmann's magic touch, staging an Italian opera daily on Broadway is a risky project.

Despite the hype, it is a tough sell and the organisers cannot afford many empty seats.

But judging by the packed crowds on preview nights, Luhrmann is on his way to a smash hit.

"I actually believed that I was in that garret in Paris," says Rebecca Paller, a critic from Opera News.

"I expected it to be radical because Moulin Rouge was so unusual a movie experience, but it's actually not that radical at all.

"Yes it's set in the 1950s and they're wearing beat generation clothes and Mimi is wearing a trenchcoat rather than a busty dress that I'm used to seeing, but this really is the story of La Boheme, " she said.

La Boheme opens at the Broadway Theatre in Manhattan on December 8.