Classical and Jazz: Preview - La Boheme in rep at the Coliseum
Published: 21 October 2011
by SEBASTIAN TAYLOR
THE autumn season of Sir Jonathan Miller opera productions continues with the English National Opera’s revival of his engaging La Boheme at the Coliseum.
Premiered a year ago, the production of Puccini’s opera is full of Miller insights, amusements and witticisms.
It’s updated from the 1890s to the 1930s student quarter in Paris where gaiety and pathos rub shoulders amid the Depression as depicted in the great photographs of Cartier-Bresson, Kertesz and Brassai.
Delightful Miller touches include a hilarious parody of Noel Coward as Musetta’s sugar-daddy, Charlie Chaplin with stick among the crowd, de Gaulle as a towering gendarme.
Philosopher Colline with great-coat in the last act is a dead-ringer for Richard Grant in Withnail and I – indeed, Miller based his take on the artists’ relationships on the iconic film.
There’s some strong singing by the young artists and chorus and the central love story gains real credibility as Miller’s production gathers pace. Trinadadian soprano Elizabeth Llewellyn in her ENO debut is excellent as frail Mimi, wooed and won with eloquent singing by Gwyn Hughes Jones as Rodolfo.
Even so, there are some serious drawbacks. Orchestral playing under conductor Stephen Lord captures Puccini’s emotional waves without drawing out the details. Further, soloists often have difficulty competing with the orchestra. That’s because Miller sites the artists’ room on the first floor of a set positioned some way from the front of the stage, the same ploy used in his Don Pasquale at the Royal Opera House.
So we’re short-changed again, often not able to hear the soloists at their best.
Then, to make matters worse, Miller gives us a truly pathetic love-death to end the opera.
After Mimi coughs a couple of times and slips away, Rodolfo’s despairing cry of “Mimi” is just too feeble for words when it should be like a Tarzan yell in the jungle.
Even so, it’s a “must see” production for Puccini fans.
• La Boheme is in rep at the Coliseum till January 27, 0871 911 0200, www.eno.org