PUCCINI’S VERY HUMAN OPERA
La Bohème Bord Gáis Theatre Finishes today ★★★★★
L‘At its centre is the beautiful Mimi, who is dying of consumption’
a Bohème didn’t go down too well with the critics when it was first produced in 1896. It had none of the big earthy themes they were used to: heroes, villains, murder, politics, history, seduction and lots of big arias. But the public responded enthusiastically to the sad, uncomplicated sentimental story, told with some of Puccini’s most passionate, almost symphonic, music in a way that critics just didn’t appreciate at first.
The opera, is set for this production in the poor Latin Quarter of Paris during the inter-war years of the 1930s. And thanks to the sensitive direction of Orpha Phelan, it had none of the awkward, artificial effect you sometimes get in a time re-setting.
It’s solidly realist in its themes, based on the aspects of everyday life people understood: love, poverty, loose morals and wretched living conditions, where a young girl might have to keep herself alive by selling her body to lusty rich men. And at its centre is the beautiful Mimi, dying of consumption, who finds genuine love in a young man, Rodolfo, as poor as herself, with few prospects in life and who lives with a bunch of other artistic types in a garret so cold that Rodolfo burns his precious writing to create a pathetic fire.
This Irish National Opera production was an ambitious affair, with a huge but not gaudy set and a large cast of leading singers, chorus and characters in even the smallest supporting roles, especially in the sparkling Second Act outside the Momus Café, a very lively interlude, where fun, noise and colourful costumes took over from the gloom of the freezing garret.
The vivacious man-eating Musetta is unscrupulous in exploiting men who come under her spell, a stark contrast with the self-effacing, consumptive Mimi.
Although in this production, Mimi seemed discreetly keen to capture Rodolfo’s affections, and he was equally willing. It’s love at first sight but with problems ahead.
The singing throughout was high-class but Celine Byrne, as the unobtrusive Mimi, gave a standout performance vocally, capturing Mimi’s character including an exquisite rendering of They Call Me Mimi and in her other romantic duets with Rodolfo (Merunas Vitulskis), up to the final one where they recall her first meeting with him and they vow eternal love before the inevitable end awaiting all consumptive sopranos.
Sarah Brady as Musetta and Iurii Samoilov as Marcello was another finely balanced combination, especially where they argued in angry duets over Musetta’s tendency to pick up men, their simultaneous duets contrasting cleverly with Rodolfo and Mimi’s subdued but passionate expressions of love.
The opera has plenty of scope for humour, and thankfully Rodolfo and his friends, and the carefree Musetta, carried it off without hamming it up.
The production owed a lot to designer Nicky Shaw and lighting designer Matt Haskins who had the difficult job of not allowing an essentially intimate opera get swallowed up in the huge spaces of The Bord Gáis Theatre stage.
‘Plenty of scope for humour which, thankfully, is not hammed up’