October 20, 2006
This was a superb production. The singing, the acting, the orchestra, the choreography, the sets… excellent; thoroughly recommended.
An essay in the programme notes by the conductor begins with: ‘the problem is that everyone thinks they know La bohème; nothing could be further from the truth’. This could just as well be said for the whole opera as for the score. The basic story is a hackneyed cliché – and we’ve seen it incomparably fleshed out in Moulin Rouge. The set-piece arias & duets are as instantly familiar to any Classic FM listener as to the geekiest opera buff. The sets are… well, perhaps the sets are as much a problem to the art director as the score is to the conductor. Act 1 is set in a Parisian garret, a place of opposites: materially cold and impoverished but homely to those so inclined, spacious for five men but intimate for one couple. Most crucially, is it conducive or inimical to artistic endeavour? Our reading of the opera’s two romances is inextricably intertwined with our sympathy and professional respect for the two (male, of course!) bohemian artists: are their affairs mere distractions from their great contributions to literature and painting, or are they the sole true emotions the two of them will ever experience? WNO’s production joyously assumes the latter, taking every opportunity to emphasise the libretto’s and the score’s disrespect for their professional artistry, while underscoring the vibrancy of even the most banal of their personal interactions. From the outset this was evident from the puerile doodlings on the garret walls. The surtitled translation was awash with barbed phrases; hysterical in themselves, tragic in context. The actors’ body language was rich with subtext, most especially between Musetta and Marcello. In Act II their grandstanding was hilarious; but by Act IV their unconscious background domesticity stole the scene from Mimi’s and Rodolfo’s straightforward tragedy.
Special praise is due to the orchestra. I don’t recall hearing such a unified, focussed ensemble from the WNO orchestra since Boulez conducted Pelléas et Mélisande. They rose magnificently to the challenge of this most subtle and changeable of scores.
If I were forced to criticise the production I would question the schizophrenic interpretation of the four act structure. The opera is in four short acts, but there was but one interval (between acts 2 and 3). Between Acts 1-2 and 3-4 we were presented with the mood-puncturing spectacle of an audibly gossiping orchestra accompanied by theatrical bangs and crashes from high-speed back stage scene changes, while the lights remained dimmed. Would it not have been better either to surrender fully to a 4-part structure, or to the design the sets to allow seamless scene-changes?
But this is to find flaw for the sake of it. This production is very highly recommended – catch it elsewhere on WNO’s tour, or next time it returns to Oxford!
An essay in the programme notes by the conductor begins with: ‘the problem is that everyone thinks they know La bohème; nothing could be further from the truth’. This could just as well be said for the whole opera as for the score. The basic story is a hackneyed cliché – and we’ve seen it incomparably fleshed out in Moulin Rouge. The set-piece arias & duets are as instantly familiar to any Classic FM listener as to the geekiest opera buff. The sets are… well, perhaps the sets are as much a problem to the art director as the score is to the conductor. Act 1 is set in a Parisian garret, a place of opposites: materially cold and impoverished but homely to those so inclined, spacious for five men but intimate for one couple. Most crucially, is it conducive or inimical to artistic endeavour? Our reading of the opera’s two romances is inextricably intertwined with our sympathy and professional respect for the two (male, of course!) bohemian artists: are their affairs mere distractions from their great contributions to literature and painting, or are they the sole true emotions the two of them will ever experience? WNO’s production joyously assumes the latter, taking every opportunity to emphasise the libretto’s and the score’s disrespect for their professional artistry, while underscoring the vibrancy of even the most banal of their personal interactions. From the outset this was evident from the puerile doodlings on the garret walls. The surtitled translation was awash with barbed phrases; hysterical in themselves, tragic in context. The actors’ body language was rich with subtext, most especially between Musetta and Marcello. In Act II their grandstanding was hilarious; but by Act IV their unconscious background domesticity stole the scene from Mimi’s and Rodolfo’s straightforward tragedy.
Special praise is due to the orchestra. I don’t recall hearing such a unified, focussed ensemble from the WNO orchestra since Boulez conducted Pelléas et Mélisande. They rose magnificently to the challenge of this most subtle and changeable of scores.
If I were forced to criticise the production I would question the schizophrenic interpretation of the four act structure. The opera is in four short acts, but there was but one interval (between acts 2 and 3). Between Acts 1-2 and 3-4 we were presented with the mood-puncturing spectacle of an audibly gossiping orchestra accompanied by theatrical bangs and crashes from high-speed back stage scene changes, while the lights remained dimmed. Would it not have been better either to surrender fully to a 4-part structure, or to the design the sets to allow seamless scene-changes?
But this is to find flaw for the sake of it. This production is very highly recommended – catch it elsewhere on WNO’s tour, or next time it returns to Oxford!