★★★✰✰
Richard Jones’ 2017 production of Puccini’s La bohème is a lesson in how less can be more. The effortless design achieves so much with so little; something as small as a precarious plume of smoke from a dirt lined building that is swallowed by the night can evoke such sentimentality: that cosy sense of precious warmth as pearls of snow flutter from the winter sky. The result is as beguiling as it is tragic for, as we know, the cold always wins.
Based on Henri Murger’s Scènes de la vie de bohème, La bohème is not just a snapshot of two star crossed lovers’ doomed romance, but a love letter to the immortal allure of the artist lifestyle. Painting and writing by day, bookended by absinthe-soaked nights– however Jones and revival director Danielle Urbas do not shy away from revealing the underbelly of the romance, the driftwood floating in the wake of hedonism.
The warring duality between day and night is cleverly woven into the set design. Sometimes we are engulfed in the vivacity of the Parisian arcades where flâneurs and femme fatales flock, and breathing in the narcotic haze of the Café Momus. But the party must come to an end. Then Rodolfo et al must return home to their sparsely furnished attic room garlanded by a silent but threatening vacuous darkness. Act 3 is particularly austere; a naked flame flickers in a metal barrel as the lovers argue and spat.
But without dark there cannot be light; Juan Diego Florez’s creamy tenor is a beacon of warmth. Mulling around the attic room on Christmas Eve with adolescent charm, it is no wonder that Ailyn Perez’s wistful Mimi is drawn to him like a magnet. Her vocals are elegant but underpinned with enough melancholy to add depth to her performance. Together they hit all the emotional notes of Mimi and Rodolfo’s tempestuous romance, as well as the musical ones. They are joined by a stalwart Andrey Zhilikhovsky as Marcello and sumptuous Danielle De Nies as Musetta who muster an equally strong onstage chemistry.
But the production is not flawless. There are some awkwardly elongated scene changes between acts and one jarring sequence where the four bohemians reveal their infantile side decorating their anaemic walls with lewd images. Despite taking time to find his feet, conductor Kevin John Edusei compensates for a somewhat crumbly opening by charging the performance with an electric tempo. The performance eventually flows with a sweet fluidity.
Words by Alexander Cohen
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