Knickers! After 41 years, it’s a new La Bohème show-stopper
LA BOHÈME Royal Opera, WC2
ALL good things must come to an end — and nowhere is that more true than on the operatic stage.
John Copley’s much-loved 1974 produc tion of Puccini’s L a Bohème remained in the repertoire for a record 41 years, but it’s time to move on.
Richard Jones, responsible for recreating the exuberantly sordid world of Anna Nicole and for countless other iconoclastic productions on the London and international stages, has come up with a spare, unsentimental reading that ultimately delivers.
As though setting themselves as far as possible from Copley’s meticulously evoked 1830s Parisian milieu, Jones and his designer Stewart Laing offer an artists’ attic stripped bare with a vengeance. It’s all timber beams, no upholstery or décor in sight — not even Jones’s trademark flock wallpaper.
That’s the big gest shock of the evening, and the deliberately unro- mantic, starkly lit interior allows no wallowing in candlelit intimacy.
During the wintry first three acts, there’s much hunching of shoulders and rubbing of hands — there’s little doubt these guys are hard-up.
Yet the constant snowfall is reminiscent of a giftshop snow-globe, which although historically apposite (they date from early 19th-century France), is probably intended ironically.
Theatrical artifice is also highlighted by the shifting of stage sets in full view.
Musically the show, conducted by Antonio Pappano with characteristic style and sensitivity, is terrific. Michael Fabiano is a thrillingly potent, impassioned Rodolfo. As Mimì, Nicole Car can’t quite match him for vocal amplitude but tugs at the heartstrings with the ebb and flow of her phrasing. Mariusz Kwiecien is outstanding as Marcello but it’s the mettlesome Musetta of Simona Mihai who steals the limelight by removing her knickers in public and flinging them at the head of her on-off lover.
Until Oct 10 (020 7304 4000, roh. org.uk); live in cinemas Oct 3