Coliseum
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| Images: Robert Workman |
Marcello – Nicholas Lester
Rodolfo – Jonathan Tetelman
Colline – David Soar
Schaunard – Božidar Smiljanić
Benoît – Simon Butteriss
Mimì – Natalya Romaniw
Parpignol – David Newman
Musetta – Nadine Benjamin
Alcindoro – Simon Butteriss
Policeman – Paul Sheehan
Official – Andrew Tinkler
Jonathan Miller (director)
Natascha Metherell (revival
director)
Isabella Bywater (set designs)
Jean Kalman (lighting)
Kevin Sleep (revival lighting)
Chorus of the English National
Opera (chorus master: Mark Biggins)
Orchestra of the English
National Opera
Alexander Joel (conductor)
And still they come. The last
opera I saw during my near-year of liberation from Poundland was La
bohème at the Deutsche Oper.
No year goes by without multiple opportunities to see it; few years now go by
without my taking at least one of those opportunities. Indeed, I see that I shall
now have gone to Jonathan Miller’s staging on three of its five (!) outings
since it was first seen at ENO in 2009. Is there a degree of overkill,
especially when it comes to a far from adventurous production? Perhaps,
although I am well aware of the (alleged) reasons for a company performing the opera
so frequently. Do they add up, though? Judging by the number of empty seats at
the Coliseum on this, the first night, I am not sure that they do. Might that
indicate that it is time to give the work a rest or a new production? Again,
perhaps, although what in the present climate would be an adequate substitute
for box-office certainty? Perhaps there is no longer any such thing. Is that a
bad thing? For a company struggling with declining funding and years of mismanagement
– remember the self-styled ‘She-E-O’, Cressida Pollock, granting interviews
about how she liked to relax with a bottle of wine whilst wearing her favourite
training shoes, at the same time as attempting to sack the chorus? – the answer
would seem to be yes. On the other hand, might it ultimately be a prod towards
diversity of repertoire, towards taking Puccini as something more artistically
serious than a box-office certainty, towards asking whether a performance in an
often jarring English translation vaguely ‘after’ Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica
is really the best way to ‘sell’ as well as to perform this work to a
multicultural audience? Perhaps. We shall see.
One very welcome aspect of this
performance – and possible justification for retaining the production a little
while longer – was the opportunity it granted, well grasped indeed, to a young
cast including two of ENO’s Harewood Artists: Nadine Benjamin and Božidar
Smiljanić. Benjamin’s Musetta is very much her own woman, no mere memory of
other Musettas we have heard – or claim to have heard (‘does not efface post-war
memories of Dame Ermintrude Heckmondthwike, “Ermie” we called her…’). Not that she was different for the sake of it,
quite the contrary, the crucial facets of Musetta’s character coming through
bright and clear, but fresh too, very much an acquaintance as well as a
reacquaintaince – and a vocal acquaintance too. Smiljanić is likewise an able actor and
impressed greatly both as soloist, insofar as possible for a Schaunard, and in
ensemble. Likewise David Soar as Colline, his final-act moment something truly to
savour. Nicholas Lester’s Marcello was definitely a cut above the average, rich
and, where appropriate, ardent of tone, hinting cleverly at far more to the
character than we ever officially learn (surely so much of the trick to a
compelling Puccini performance). Simon Butteriss’s comedic turns as Benoît and
Alcindoro even had a doubter such as I consider the approach (Miller’s, I suspect,
more than the artist’s) perfectly justified.
Last yet anything but least, our
pair of star-crossed lovers, played by Jonathan Tetelman and Natalya Romaniw,
showed themselves (mostly) sensitive artists who could yet project to the back
of the largest of theatres. (Alas, the Coliseum remains not the least of ENO’s
problems, whatever audience members ‘of a certain age’ might claim.) Romaniw’s
Mimì proved perhaps the more moving early on, but that is more likely a
consequence of the opera itself than of any great performative disparity; both
certainly moved in the final tragedy of the work’s final minutes. If only they
had not on occasion – under instruction, I suspect – played to the gallery,
treating their ‘big moments’ as stand-alone arias. The real culprit here, I
think, was Alexander Joel. His conducting of the ever-excellent ENO Orchestra
was incisive and mostly unsentimental, but he seemed incapable of thinking – or
at least projecting – a greater unity to each act, let alone to the score as a
whole. Of Puccini’s ‘symphonism’, we heard little or nothing.
As for Miller’s production,
ably revived by Natascha Metherell – who surely deserved a curtain call – it is
what it is. Paris updated to the thirties looks beautiful, occasionally
desperate too; Personenregie is keen.
As mentioned above, I am more reconciled to its comedy than I first was. Moreover,
I rather like – some do not – the glimpses we catch of characters off the set
as such, carrying on with their lives. Something a little challenging or
interesting, though, would surely not go amiss in the future. As yet, few if
any directors seem to have matched Stefan Herheim’s challenge in his superlative
Norwegian Opera production, let alone gone beyond it. Will time tell? Perhaps.
