Life is messy. Love, even more so.

Consider opera singers David and Sarah Joy Miller, whose love story could inspire an opera of its own.

When they met in 2003, they were, as the saying goes, otherwise attached. They both noticed and ignored each other, the way people who are attracted to each other sometimes do.

David, now a member of the successful pop opera group Il Divo, was then performing on Broadway as Rodolfo in Baz Luhrmann’s production of “La Boheme.” Sarah was a college co-ed getting her feet wet by playing Mimi’s understudy.

When that show ended, they moved on to the Los Angeles production where they performed together and had to share a passionate kiss. It was both intense and awkward, and it marked the beginning of their love affair and the end of Sarah Joy’s marriage.

Now, married to each other for three years, David and Sarah Joy sing the parts of another pair of doomed lovers, Alfredo and Violetta, in the Palm Beach Opera’s production of “La Traviata,” at the Kravis Center on Saturday.

The emotions in Verdi’s opera are nothing to what the couple felt their first time on stage together.

She swooned when he kissed her. He forgot the lyrics.

They were smitten. Their chemistry, undeniable.

When he left for another opera job in Italy, she drove him to the airport. Sarah Joy felt a piece of her had gotten on the plane with David, and David felt a piece of him had been left behind. When the Italian opera job ended in disaster, and David licked his wounds in Paris, he called her: Come, he said. She spent her last penny on a plane ticket.

Over the next two weeks in the romance capital of the world, David fell in love, not hook, line and sinker, but “head, body and soul,” he said. Sarah Joy said she fell in love with David’s “Peter Pan” appeal. “He’s forever young. I think that when he’s 80 he’ll still seem 14.”

But in the middle of their joy was a hard truth: Sarah Joy had to return home to end her marriage.

Once that was done, they were together (David and Sarah Joy eventually married in 2009, in a ceremony covered by The New York Times.) But as they started their new journey, they were also flat broke. Fortunately, during their time in France, David got word of auditions for a new project by Simon Cowell. The “American Idol” and “X Factor” judge was conducting a worldwide search for singers for a pop-opera quartet.

David earned a place alongside Sébastien Izambard, Carlos Marín and Urs Bühler in the Armani-suited group Il Divo. A truly international act, they sing in Spanish, English, Italian, and French. They’ve sold 26 million albums, and are rehearsing for a tour of Europe that kicks off in March.

That gives David and Sarah Joy the financial wiggle room to occasionally take an opera job together. Scott Guzielek, the director of artistic operations for Palm Beach Opera, says lots of real-life couples perform together in regional operas nowadays.

And “La Traviata” is one of his favorites, and a perfect introduction for those who are opera novices.

“It’s accessible,” Gusielek says. “The story is straightforward and easy to follow. The music is stunningly beautiful, with passionate melodies and a story that’s timeless: Two lovers separated by honor, both realizing too late that love should have won. Verdi was really a genius. He tells you so much through the score, you almost don’t need to understand the words.”

Certainly when Sarah Joy sings, “Amami, Alfredo, amami quant’io t’amo” (“Love me, Alfredo, love me as I love you”), there’s a ring of truth in the crystal clear tone of her soprano. But that’s not the only similarity. Violetta loves Alfredo so much, she sacrifices her own happiness to protect his family.

For David and Sarah Joy, compromise and sacrifice are the status quo. While he’s been busy with Il Divo, Sarah’s been a member of the light classical-pop group Three Graces and in the past couple of years has performed in operas from Michigan to New York, as well as recording a disc of arias with a Hungarian classical orchestra.

“In 2012, I was home 21 days,” David said.

Home is New York City, but right now the couple is tucked away in a romantic West Palm cottage with their dog, Cosmo. (His last name is Politan, David jokes.) The simple joy of making dinner together at night, and waking up together in the morning is not lost on the jet-setting couple.

“We try not to go more than five or six weeks without seeing each other,” David said. And of course, they Skype, and text, and talk long-distance a dozen times a day.

The irony that the more successful they are in their careers, the less time they’ll spend together isn’t lost on them. And there is no real balance, David says. Instead, you get used to dealing with a life that demands to be out of balance. But both believe that absence makes the heart grow fonder, and they treasure those precious moments.

“We appreciate every second we have together,” David said. “The relationship is still a priority.”