La Boheme, Liverpool Empire 5th December 2008
Rating: 7/10
Puccini's haunting score combined with the simple love story of La Boheme virtually guarantees audiences a memorable night at the theatre and this production is calculated to captivate opera connoisseurs and newcomers alike.
If you have never seen an opera before and want to get hooked on this most complete form of theatre then it's a good bet to start with an Ellen Kent production. She certainly is the unchallenged 'maestra' of opera that is accessible to the uninitiated.
No-one can fail to be impressed by the stunning amphitheatre stage set that Ellen commissioned for this, and two other works presented in Liverpool, in conjunction with the impressive Chisinau National Philharmonic Orchestra of Moldovia.
So imposing is the set that designer Will Bowen could be accused of stealing the show, but with some excellent individual performances the cast rose to the challenge and held our attention throughout.
It was a classic production of a classic opera that kept faithfully to the original script and dispensed with any of the self-serving avant-garde gimmicks that can so easily mar such productions for the paying audience.
La Boheme tells the tale of the doomed love between Mimi - a beautiful young girl whose job is embroidering flowers onto silk - and a penniless poet who lives in a garret overlooking the roofs of the Left Bank of Paris in the mid 19th Century.
The show opens with the wayward scribbler Rudolfo burning drafts of his work with his painter flatmate Marcello, as they try to keep warm.
From the outset this scene begs the age-old question of whether we should expect convincing 'acting' in a opera.
Here they sought to convince us they were freezing cold in their icy apartment by stamping their feet etc.
Unfortunately it was not convincing, despite the clever effect of smoke emerging from the stove as the paper burned. And since we were unconvinced of the cold it rather took the edge off the famous aria "Che gelida manina" (Your tiny hand is frozen).
The rather small stature of Ukrainian Ruslan Zinevych belies an excellent tenor voice though he sometimes struggled to fill the cavernous Empire auditorium, especially in the arias that did not call for the top of his range.
Russian-born soprano Irina Vinogradova gave a tremendously moving and convincing performance, as the tragic tuberculosis victim Mimi, whose character appears 'too good to be true' in the melodramatic libretto.
She was perfectly matched for musicality against the feckless flirt Muzetta played by Maria Tsonina.
The orchestra directed by Nicolae Dohotaru produced an impressive sound, resounding through the theatre and only occasionally drowning-out the vocals as we were carried through the heights and depths of emotion by Puccini's haunting score.
The overall beauty of this show was its simplicity and only occasionally were we challenged to keep up with the action by the clever overlapping of the vocal lines of Rudolfo and Mimi, Marcello and Muzetta.
Act 4 gave us the tragic closing scene that finally shows how shallow and facile is the love of the poet Rudolfo for his soulmate Mimi.
As she died of consumption on his bed, emotional cripple Rudolfo was not even present at her side, hiding instead with his face to the wall. The message is clear that even though he is a poet this man is unworthy of the magical Mimi.
The story is quickly completed and the curtain comes down on a scene in which the figures appear like statues frozen in time - a tableau that will live in the memory of the audience for weeks leaving us delighted to have witnessed this rendition of Puccini's masterpiece.
The next opportunity to see Ellen Kent Operas at the Empire are Turandot and Aida on
27/28/29 March 2009.
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