Royal Opera House
Marcello – Markus Werba
Rodolfo – Charles Castronovo
Colline – Jongmin Park
Schaunard – Daniel Grice
Benoît – Jeremy White
Mimì – Ermonela Jaho
Parpignol – Luke Price
Musetta – Simona Mihai
Alcindoro – Donald Maxwell
Customs Officer – Christopher
Lackner
Sergeant – Bryan Secombe
John Copley (director)
Julia Trevelyan Oman
(designs)
John Charlton (lighting)
Extra Chorus
Members of Tiffin Children’s Chorus
Royal Opera Chorus (chorus master: Renato Balsadonna)
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Cornelius Meister (conductor)
Perhaps I have made life too
difficult for myself; it would not necessarily be the first time. At any rate,
since the last time I saw John Copley’s production of La bohème – it had actually been my first, something that certainly
was not the case for much of the Royal Opera House’s audience – I have seen on
DVD Stefan Herheim’s brilliant staging of the work for the Norwegian National
Opera. A typically musical production which transforms one’s understanding of
the work, or at least of the possibilities it offers, resolutely avoiding the
slightest hint of sentimentality and instead tackling head on difficult
realities of life, death, and memory, Herheim’s Bohème is perhaps bound to have many others suffer by comparison.
That is not, of course, to say that every production should be like it, or
indeed that any production should attempt to imitate it, but that it marks a turning-point
in the reception of La bohème, and
that as venerable a staging as this, even when revived in lively fashion by the
original director, is perhaps more likely than before to have one feel that something
is missing. Or at least that it is going to require especially outstanding
performances to make it live as once it might have done.
The Orchestra of the Royal
Opera House offered a predictable trump card, rarely if ever putting a foot –
or bow – wrong, playing Puccini’s score with an assuredness that never toppled
over into over-familiarity. Cornelius Meister’s conducting of the orchestra
receives more of a mixed report. In its favour, there was a great deal of care
taken to characterise individual scenes, moods, even lines. This was certainly
not a routine reading. However, a longer line often proved elusive, partly
because it was not clear how individual sections fitted together. Contrast is
good but still more important is underlying unity. An opening scene took almost
anti-Romantic jauntiness to excess, whilst declarations of affection – or their
approach – often became a spur to indulgence. Perhaps Meister’s is a conception that will
tighten as the run proceeds; there was an undoubted intelligence to be heard. A
few shaky moments of ensemble aside, he seemed eminently capable of drawing
from the orchestra and his cast what he wanted.
Ermonela Jaho’s Mimì was
beautifully, often passionately sung, drawing upon a splendid array of vocal
colours, generally – if perhaps not always – with a dramatic point in mind.
Alas, her acting abilities lagged behind; there was far too much of the stock
gesture, which might have worked better in certain other Puccini operas, but
which seemed both over the top and non-specific in this would-be Bohemian
milieu. Bar an uncertain top – at one point in the first act, quite alarmingly
so – Charles Castronovo showed himself to be an adept Puccini singer and actor.
When I have heard him in Mozart, I have thought his style perilously close to
Puccini; here, he seemed very much at home. Markus Werba offered a typically
intelligent reading of Marcello, attentive to the words in a way that not all
of his colleagues were. Simona Mihai’s Musetta was somewhat generalised in
scope, not assisted by Copley’s insistence upon comedy in the second act. Jongmin
Park’s deep bass Colline was beautifully sung, though it sounded at times a
little close to the world of Boris
Godunov. Luke Price’s Parpignol struggled a little too much in vocal terms.
However, the choral singing was excellent.
