United Kingdom Puccini, La bohème: Soloists, Refrain and Orchestra of the Royal Opera Home / Evelino Pidò (conductor). Royal Opera Home, Covent Backyard, 25.1.2024. (JPr)
La bohème was Puccini’s fourth opera for the stage; first placed on in Turin in 1896, it was not an prompt hit with the critics. The following yr the Carl Rosa Firm offered it in English at Manchester, and some months later at Covent Backyard. On 30 June 1899 it was sung there in Italian and thus turned a staple of the repertory. That manufacturing principally survived two world wars till John Copley’s much-fêted and oft-revived staging in 1974 which was lastly changed by Richard Jones’s one in September 2017. I used to be within the opera home for its premiere and though I noticed this La bohème within the cinema in 2022, this was the primary time I had been again to Covent Backyard to see it since then. Certainly, it had been about eighteen months since, for varied causes, I had sat and watched something at Covent Backyard. I used to be glad to be there for what was a throwback to these particular evenings on Bow Avenue in (youthful) days passed by which made you return there repeatedly.
The librettists’ supply materials was Murger’s novel Scènes de la vie de Bohème and so they chosen 4 of the episodes and imbued them with the spirit of the unique. Though set in Paris about 1830, the story is a timeless one with appreciable modern resonances. The introduction within the programme reminds us how the opera ‘offers with the standard predicaments of peculiar flawed people: poverty, artistic failures, selfishness and home breakdown. Towards that is the intoxicating however pitiless backdrop of a materialistic society […] No surprise that not having – cash, meals, well being – proves terminally disastrous.’
In November will probably be the centenary of Puccini’s demise and the Royal Opera’s commemorations have begun with 13 performances of La bohème with completely different casts and two conductors. Puccini is a type of composers whose masterpieces might be thought of biographical in nature and right here there’s the recollection of the composer’s personal scholar days – sharing a room in Milan with Pietro Mascagni (of Cavalleria rusticana fame) – and little doubt recalling one thing about misplaced love too. Intriguingly Puccini’s commencement train from the Milan Conservatoire, Capriccio sinfonico, is the music we hear first because the curtain rises.
With La bohème Puccini seems extra open to the idea of symphonic growth than different Italian opera composers, particularly Verdi: Act II might be thought of the ‘scherzo’ and Act III the ‘sluggish motion’. Puccini additionally makes use of one thing known as ‘thematic memory’ which isn’t far faraway from Wagner’s leitmotifs. Right here in La bohème, we have now themes related to the bohemians and with Mimì, amongst others. Additionally, we ought to expertise the opera as being extra ‘through-composed’ than we’re used to. Nonetheless, we all know solely too properly that sure arias and duets from La bohème might be taken out of their authentic context and carried out on their very own, and my solely (delicate) criticism of this efficiency was the conductor Evelino Pidò’s have to cease repeatedly for applause.
Again within the mid-Nineteen Nineties I chaired an occasion when Richard Jones was requested what his controversial Covent Backyard Ring of that point was all about and his rejoinder was ‘Effectively, what does it imply to you?’ When equally quizzed in 2017 about whether or not his La bohème was ‘conventional’ his reply was – and sure, you’ve may need guessed it – ‘Please are you able to inform me what conventional means?’
It is a very snowy La bohème and a few falls gently down onto the stage minutes earlier than the primary observe of music is heard. The bohemians I noticed introduced loads of power to their antics; although it’s by no means solely clear what attracts them to designer Stewart Laing’s terribly sparsely furnished and undecorated Scandinavian-style timber body ‘garret’. There may be nothing in it, it appears, apart from one chair, an previous tea chest, a small heating range, a grimy pillow, blanket and rug. There isn’t any easel for Marcello and any ‘portray’ is mimed. That is considered one of just a few diversions from ‘conventional’ which incorporates loads of singing going through out to the viewers. There may be additionally little probability of not discovering Mimì’s lacking key as when the candles exit the room stays brightly lit!
Act II is the place all the cash went: there are three enormous glass-roofed buying galleries with all method of delights pushed and pulled into place exhibiting Paris within the Eighties. In typical Richard Jones trend all of it rapidly turns into overcrowded and everyone seems to be crammed right into a small area throughout the entrance of the stage. Extra muscle energy is required to vary what we see into the Café Momus full of tables. Every little thing is in straight traces and the bohemians, Mimì, Musetta and Alcindoro are all within the first row going through out to the viewers as soon as once more. A whole lot of the acquainted happenings will get misplaced in all of the bustling exercise and it’s tough to identify the main characters at instances. Nonetheless, there isn’t a downside in any respect noticing Musetta eradicating her French knickers to enrage her wealthy admirer, Alcindoro, and make her former lover, Marcello, jealous!
Act III takes place on a snow-covered naked stage with a single brazier and what appears to be like like a prefabricated picket tavern. That is the place Marcello is ‘shacked up’ with Musetta while he’s portray the skin and she or he is ‘entertaining’ the shoppers. As Rodolfo and Mimì agree to remain collectively till Spring the small constructing retreats diagonally throughout the stage. It is a good contact and is as if the couple are attempting to distance themselves from actual life and Mimì’s impending destiny. As we all know solely too properly, she is dying of tuberculosis. And expire she does on the finish of a ultimate act performed out pretty straightforwardly once more, although when the bohemians amuse themselves it isn’t with cod dancing – in all senses of the phrase since Colline brings in a small fish – although by graffitiing their house. Having briefly revived Traviata-like, Mimì dies on the ground along with her head propped up on the range.
Evelino Pidò performed Puccini’s evocative and romantic rating with its hovering melodies assuredly and fluidly (in the principle) and he was well-supported by the Orchestra of the Royal Opera Home, in addition to the dependable and boisterous refrain and diverse kids. Tempi solely sagged a bit for Angela Gheorghiu’s Mimì in any other case this La bohème flew by at a cracking tempo.
It’s virtually two years since I noticed the Romanian pairing of Angela Gheorghiu and Stefan Pop in Tosca at Covent Backyard and I wrote about Pop how ‘he appears to be like quite a bit like a younger Luciano Pavarotti, proved himself to be a (equally) convincing actor with an easy-going method onstage’ and the way he ‘could be welcome again to Covent Backyard any time’. Welcome, on this event, Pop definitely was for an ardent Rodolfo: his voice is powerful – and with virtually Wagnerian heft – however he can pare his sound down for some beautiful phrases and expressive use of textual content.
Not for the primary time in my expertise, Angela Gheorghiu made a quite tentative and underpowered begin to her efficiency, and she or he probably can have made extra impression with ‘Sì, mi chiamano Mimì’ in earlier years. From then on, she improved no finish and her signature wealthy and darkly tinged lyric soprano proved little modified from these instances I’ve heard Gheorghiu since her well-known Violetta for Sir Georg Solti at Covent Backyard in 1994 which propelled her to stardom. There was glorious chemistry along with her Rodolfo which might solely come from having sung collectively quite a lot of instances earlier than. Gheorghiu formed a number of of Puccini’s phrases exquisitely and Mimì’s demise was as affecting as I can keep in mind it due to the unbelievable manner her ultimate phrase ‘dormire’ (sleep) light into nothingness (distinctive in my expertise).
Having to battle her manner by way of the group in Act II, Simona Mihal was once more Musetta as she was in 2017. Milhal’s vibrant character and engaging voice once more confirmed Musetta as sassy, spirited and promiscuous at the start however suitably caring on the finish when her Act IV prayer was sung with nice sincerity. Andrey Zhilikhovsky was a charismatic Marcello, and he sang strongly if with out a lot heat for Puccini. Zoltan Nagy was a energetic Schaunard and Michael Mofidian a resonant and dour Colline and so they did in addition to they might with what little Puccini offers them. This prolonged to the cameos from the returning Jeremy White and Wyn Pencarreg as, respectively, the irascible Benoît and duped Alcindoro whose characters are additionally mere ciphers in La bohème.
Jim Pritchard
Manufacturing:
Director – Richard Jones
Revival Director – Simon Iorio
Designer – Stewart Laing
Lighting designer – Mimi Jordan Sherin
Motion director – Sarah Fahie
Revival Motion director – Danielle Urbas
Refrain director – William Spaulding
Solid:
Marcello – Andrey Zhilikhovsky
Rodolfo – Stefan Pop
Colline – Michael Mofidian
Schaunard – Zoltan Nagy
Benoît – Jeremy White
Mimì – Angela Gheorghiu
Parpignol – Nicholas Sharratt
Musetta – Simona Mihai
Alcindoro – Wyn Pencarreg
Customs Officer – Dominic Barrand
Sergeant – Thomas Barnard
