New York ? There are at least six different versions of “La Boheme” on Broadway.

Baz Luhrmann’s new production of Puccini’s opera features three different sets of lead actors and two sets of actors in supporting roles who perform on a rotating basis.

The unusual arrangement creates a show that has a different look and sound depending on which night you see it.

“We’re all trying to do our own thing,” says Wei Huang, one of the three actresses playing Mimi, the female lead. “We have a similar structure to our performances, but lots of small details are different.”

The singing and acting vary, of course, but other aspects of the show change, too. Different actors wear different costumes, individually tailored to their personalities, and the conductor alters the pace of the musical accompaniment depending on who is singing.

Variety was not Luhrmann’s goal in casting the show with rotating players. It was a matter of simple necessity. Traditional opera houses schedule only a few performances over a period of several weeks to allow voices ample time to recover between shows.

Luhrmann’s production, by contrast, will be running a typical Broadway schedule of eight performances a week. Not even the strongest opera voice could handle that workout.

Finding and preparing three casts was one of the most challenging aspects in bringing the $6.5 million production to Broadway. For one thing, it inflated the budget for the show, which has the largest cast payroll of any production on Broadway, according to producer Jeffrey Seller.

It also required an epic, two-year casting effort that saw more than 2,000 performers audition.

“It was like trying to find alluvial gold,” Luhrmann says. “We sifted a lot of sand.”