La bohème, English National Opera, 5 February 2022

Coliseum

Marcello – Charles Rice
Rodolfo – Adam Gilbert, David Junghoom Kim
Colline – William Thomas
Schaunard – Benson Wilson
Benoît, Alcindoro – Simon Butteriss
Mimì – Sinéad Campbell-Wallace
Parpignol – Adam Sullivan
Musetta – Louise Alder
Policeman – Paul Sheehan
Official – Andrew Tinkler

Jonathan Miller (director)
Crispin Lord (revival director)
Isabella Bywater (designs)
Jean Kalman, Martin Doone (lighting)

Chorus of the English National Opera (chorus director: Mark Biggins)
Orchestra of the English National Opera
Ben Glassberg (conductor)

ENO La bohème 2022, company © Genevieve Girling

This was, I think, the fourth time I have seen Jonathan Miller’s production of La bohème. It strikes me, in this revival directed by Crispin Lord, to have a good deal of life in it left. Indeed, previous reservations have largely vanished. It is not a complex piece of theatre, nor does it lead one especially to reassess the piece, but it enables an intelligent retelling, far from dependent on the participation of particular artists and frames that retelling in unshowy yet arresting 1930s style. It is recognisably Paris, recognisably ‘Bohemia’, and again offers space, if far from a blank canvas, to enable artists to create them and make them their own. It has a definite photographic-cinematic look too, and a similar propulsion to the action, all suiting and shaping Puccini’s timing, concision, and ‘cuts’. Where I initially found elements of comedy jarring, now they seemed to me very much part of a greater tragicomic vision, like night and day, or life and death. The ‘extra’ elements observed, whether general city toing and froing or, in the fourth act, Musetta arriving downstairs with Mimì, struggling to get her upstairs, genuinely added to the drama rather than distracting from it.

Perhaps I had previously been too much of a curmudgeon, or perhaps the distance afforded by a revival director and lively cast make all the difference. Perhaps, even, the pandemic has played its part in permitting all of us to appreciate what we have, rather than longing for what we have never had. At any rate, it works well and spares us the inevitable ‘coronavirus production’ around the corner. The one I truly dread is the Tristan ‘Brangäne, you’re on mute’ staging: ‘I only wanted to stage this opera when Tristan und Isolde could be shown as radically distanced from each other, never truly on-screen at the same time. Video conferencing gave me the tools to pursue that vision.’ But I digress: back to Puccini. 

Or maybe not, for one of the most impressive aspects was Ben Glassberg’s conducting, which revelled in Puccini’s Wagnerisms, memories of Tristan evoked quite magically in the first act, without taking for something they were not. The sounds extracted from the ENO Orchestra were often magnificent: a great dynamic range, from moments of hushed intimacy, to grand, declamatory gesture. But it was Glassberg’s pacing and his reconciliation of vocal and orchestral demands that marked this out most strongly. That was not all his doing, of course. Both orchestra and chorus—what a joy to see and hear a chorus, handled most resourcefully, onstage once again—deserved plaudits in their own right. String sheen and incisiveness, bubbling woodwind and chorus: these and more played their part in weaving an effervescent, yet ever-darkening dramatic tapestry. 

ENO La bohème 2022, Simon Butteriss, Louise Alder © Genevieve Girling 

So too, naturally, did the singers. Sinéad Campbell-Wallace gave a touching performance as Mimì, finely acted as well as sung, with a generosity of spirit that took us far beyond any perils of sentimentality. Louise Alder was an outstanding Musetta, as charismatic as one could wish for in vocal as well as stage presence, with a sharply drawn character that avoided all suspicion of caricature and yet suggested uncommon depth, worn lightly. Charles Rice offered a similarly charismatic Marcello, swaggering, ardent, yet not without vulnerability. David Junghoon Kim was alas unable to sing Rodolfo, though continued to act it, Adam Gilbert making an excellent replacement from the wings. Benson Wilson and William Thomas gave sharply etched portrayals of Schaunard and Colline respectively, the latter's Coat Aria a tiny gem in itself. Simon Butteriss well-nigh stole the show with turns as Benoît and Alcindoro. Some may not have cared for his—and other—spoken interventions, but for me they seemed much in keeping with the general sense of musico-theatrical company. That, surely, is a post-pandemic prize ENO would do well to win back. On this evidence, at least, it is a good way there already.

Così fan tutte, Royal Academy Opera, 29 November 2010

Sir Jack Lyons Theatre, Royal Academy of Music

(Don) Alfonso – Frederick Long
Ferrando – Roberto Ortiz
Guglielmo – Charles Rice
Fiordiligi – Ruth Jenkins
Dorabella – Katie Bray
Despina – Mary Bevan

John Cox (director)
Gary McCann (designs)
Jake Wiltshire (lighting)

Chorus
Royal Academy Sinfonia
Jane Glover (conductor)


This Royal Academy Opera production of Così fan tutte proved considerably more enjoyable than a number of higher profile Mozart performances I have endured recently. (ENO’s Don Giovanni stands, unfortunately, freshest in the mind.) John Cox’s production translates the action to an academy of its own, recalling the work’s subtitle, ‘The School for Lovers,’ and emphasising the action’s focus upon experimentation – and, it would seem, its questioning of ‘scientific’ results. The young men are students in behavioural science and army reservists; Alfonso (he loses the ‘Don’) is their tutor, wishing to test his hypothesis that women are genetically programmed to be promiscuous. Their girlfriends, still sisters, are musicians, and Despina both Alfonso’s research assistant and the girls’ landlady. Both she and the male students have training in the dramatic arts, which they put to use in disguising their identities. It works well enough, given the widespread supposition that a modern audience cannot accept a work to be set when and where it was intended. I have no particular problem with such updating, which at least seems to have been thought through; the only real issue is that it, rather than the work’s dramatic core, tends to become the point at issue. Abstraction, as witnessed for example in productions for the Salzburg Festival by Hans Neuenfels (I seem to have been the only person who liked that) and Karl-Ernst and Ursel Hermann, probably works better.

However, there is something to be said for a production that speaks specifically to its audience, in this case a collegiate institution and friends. Gary McCann’s designs painted the lecture theatre, Despina’s house, and so on very well, whilst the lit evocation of evening from Jake Wiltshire was particularly pleasing – and credible. Jonathan Burton’s surtitles veered between recomposition to fit the production conceit and a more literal approach. Such is ever an issue when it comes to relocation, but the split approach proved a little confusing at times (unless one actually knew what was being sung, which one can hardly assume – and if one could, there would be little need for titles).

Jane Glover, Director of Opera, conducted the Royal Academy Sinfonia and a sixteen-strong student chorus. The latter does not have that much to do but nevertheless did it well. Orchestrally, Mozart is a cruel taskmaster indeed, for there is truly nowhere to hide in his scores; there were perhaps a few too many orchestral slips and infelicities. A certain edge to the upper strings – too few in number really, even for a small theatre – and occasional intonational problems could not be entirely wished away, though the former would seem to have been related to Glover’s general brusqueness. She delineated the structure clearly enough – a definite advantage – but seemed reluctant to allow the music to breathe, to permit it to seduce us, which after all is or should be a good part of the dramatic point. One could not help but wish that the occupant of the International Chair of Conducting and Orchestral Studies, Sir Colin Davis, had been in the pit. The cellos, however, often proved delightful, as did a number of woodwind soloists.

What, then, of the Academy’s singers, for whom this acted as a showcase? There were two casts; I caught the ‘second’, though that is purely a numerical matter, not an issue of quality. Ruth Jenkins’s Fiordiligi impressed. It is not easy even to cover the notes – and it will be painfully evident if the soprano fails to do so – but Jenkins imparted a good deal of meaning to them too, her parodies of grand opera seria arias especially noteworthy. Katie Bray proved a good foil as Dorabella, her acting skills of a high standard too. Mary Bevan’s Despina was of a similar class to Jenkins’s Fiordiligi: not at all irritating, and more rounded a character, musically as well as on stage, than we often experience. One thing that all singers had in common, of course, was their youth: this holds advantages in straightforward dramatic credibility and disadvantages in terms of vocal maturity. I felt that Frederick Long’s Alfonso, who obviously does not ‘need’ to appear young, therefore suffered a little on stage: no fault of his own, and he sang well, though the ‘elderly’ moustache perhaps did him no favours. Roberto Ortiz’s Ferrando, however, often lacked the vocal security the cruel role of Ferrando requires, and his style diverged a little too much from the Mozartian, likeable though he may have been on stage. As Guglielmo, Charles Rice generally impressed, his swagger increasing as time went on, making payback the more moving. There clearly lies a good future ahead for many, perhaps all, of these artists.