La Boheme-ROH

Pooh Bar from the Mikado - I'm just showing off now, as I said elsewhere I was, as a student. rehearsal accompanist for G&S productions and can still play most of the songs and parrot most of the dialogue.

That's fascinating. would have love to hear Lenny conduct G&S!

Here's another (unrelated) fascinating fact; in James Kaplan's book on Sinatra he mentions that 'the chairman' not only loved opera, particularly Puccini, but he was also a great fan of Vaughan Williams.

BBC Four will be showing this production on Christmas Day at 7PM

I am sorry to report that I was disappointed in the new ROH production of La bohème shown on TV yesterday. As expected, it was musically strong under Pappano's conducting and I thought all the singers did well, although personally I found Nicole Car strangely unconvincing. Perhaps because she seemed too 'modern' and I detected a slight touch of hysteria in her singing, right from her first aria, although I did enjoy her in the last act.

My main quibble was with the production that seemed to be trying to be faithful to the original setting of the opera in 1830 Paris and yet included details that I thought rather hard to believe. For example, the garret in which the four bohemians were living was freezing cold, a fact that was made perfectly clear when they had to burn Rodolfo's play to keep warm and yet they seemed happy to have an open skylight with a ladder going through it.  When Mimì arrived asking for a light for her candle, she said she was short of breath from having climbed the stairs, presumably from having been outside, and yet she had neither a coat nor a shawl, although the bohemians had put on warm clothes and large velvet hats in order to go outside to a café. And Mimì left the garret with Rodolfo to go outside, again with no shawl or coat and neither she nor Rodolfo seemed to notice this. Apart from the open skylight, I wasn't totally convinced by the design of the garret, especially as it is supposed to have a large window to admit light for Marcello to paint and for Mimì to be bathed in moonlight for the final duet.  And, as far as I recall, there was virtually no change in the rather flat, bright lighting of the set for the whole of the act, despite being told how dark it was after Rodolfo had extinguished his own candle and they are scrabbling around in the darkness looking for Mimì's key ('Al buio non si trova') when their hands meet for 'Che gelida manina'.

Act II was a spectacular bit of staging but Café Momus seemed to be a rather grand indoor restaurant with high quality crystal glasses and crockery and not the popular boulevard café where the shenanigans of Musetta could be witnessed by the crowds in the street who in this case had to be looking into the restaurant through closed windows.  

Act III gave us a very odd kind of inn that seemed to be just a single small hut so one wondered how Marcello and Musetta could actually be living there with Musetta giving singing lessons to the guests. I didn't mind the absence of the customs barrier at a gate to the city although it is supposed to be part of the setting.

Act IV also gave me another worry about Mimì's poor dress sense when she arrived in a topless frock with no coat or shawl, even though she tells us how cold her hands are and she would love to have a muff.

Sorry to be distracted by these production details but this is a flagship production at the Royal Opera House on which a lot of money has been spent and it is intended for frequent revival. I certainly have no great urge to see it again for its own sake.



 

Now that's an interesting thought, Coated. In attending productions of both opera and ballet at the Royal Opera House for some 57 years, I am not aware of any old production of an opera ever being revived once it has been replaced by a new one. With the ballet, we did have what was supposed to be a revival of the old much-loved 'Sleeping Beauty' a few years ago, except that it wasn't actually a fully accurate reproduction because one of the most memorable moments of that old production was totally missing, namely Aurora's first appearance across the back of the stage through a kind of colonnade before she entered onto the main stage. To see Fonteyn making that first entrance was a moment of sheer magic that one never forgot.

I can imagine acts 1&4 look terrible from any seat costing under £100

My laugh out loud highlight was Act 3’s moving hut!

Of course you enjoyed it, tmesis. No doubt the Christmas booze helped, but it was a musically strong performance of one of the great masterpieces in the modern operatic canon. Despite the unsatisfactory aspects of the production, how could one not respond to Puccini's brilliant testament to the joys and sorrows of youth, especially when it was played so well and sung by such an accomplished cast – and we didn't have to shell out any money to see it with the excellent view of the BBC TV cameras, apart from what we pay for our TV Licence (and I get mine for free now as I am so old anyway). Leaving aside my response to the production, the biggest annoyance for me was the usual unwanted stuff at the start covering rehearsals and interviews with singers and such, a distraction totally absent from the broadcast of 'Oklahoma!' from the Proms.

I saw it live with the same cast as was in the BBC broadcast and I loved it. For me it's a solid 4 star production (in many ways very conventional - but it really works for this piece. None of that outer space rubbish) that I will happily re-watch if the cast interests me.

I thought the new fireplace and the Cafe Momos scenes were particularly gorgeous, and it seemed to appeal to the essence of La Boheme. I really liked all the actors, who looked and acted how I imagine the characters should (and age appropriate too).

I've seen a lot of Boheme productions and this was up there with my favourites.

^ That description by Garden of Melba's final note is fabulous. It gave me goosebumps reading it.

Kind of odd that there are no student tickets for today's performances considering there are so many seats left. I was hoping to go tonight but can't afford the £147 minimum ticket. Oh well.

Atalla Ayan on form is an exceptional tenor, I would never have cast him in Boheme though.