Nineteen-fifties Italian cinema seems to hold a certain fascination for opera directors at present. Hard on the heels of Rodula Gaitanou’s Opera North staging of Ariadne auf Naxos, which reimagined Strauss in terms of Fellini working on one of his more surreal phantasmagorias, this new production of La Bohème by Natascha Metherell for Opera Holland Park, also relocates Puccini to a 50s film studio, where a Visconti-style costume pic, set in Second Empire Paris and entitled La Vie Parisienne, is being shot. Gaitanou’s Strauss production was able to carry the idea off thanks to the emphasis on the relationship between reality, illusion and creativity in the opera itself. The realism and directness of La Bohème, however, sit uneasily with multiple layers of reference and postmodern irony, and Metherell’s staging on occasion leaves Puccini swamped.
Her basic idea elevates Alcindoro (Henry Grant Kerswell) to the status of the film’s director (Elizabeth Karani’s chanteuse Musetta starts out as his mistress), and the drama plays itself out among the studio workers hovering at times on the peripheries of the industry to which they are drawn. Adam Gilbert’s Rodolfo is an aspiring screenwriter in love with Mimì (Katie Bird) from the wardrobe department. Colline (Barnaby Rea) rushes around with a clapperboard during shoots, and Harry Thatcher’s nattily dressed Schaunard is a budding composer on the make. Ross Ramgobin’s Marcello, meanwhile, is designing a big sword-and-sandals epic in production elsewhere at the studio.
The real problem, however, is not so much the transposition (though it adds nothing to the work) as Metherell’s overly busy stagecraft. The OHP chorus also act as extras, and are frequently on stage when neither needed nor wanted. Scene shifters haul flats and props about during Gilbert’s Che Gelida Manina, which is annoying. The Café Momus scene, whirling between film shoot and what looks like a staff canteen, is spectacular but confusing. Act III works, because Metherell keeps her interventions at bay and trusts Puccini to carry both emotion and narrative. But the final scene, with the chorus wandering distractingly on to watch Mimì’s death, comes dangerously close to undermining its power.
Within all this, there are, however, some fine performances. Bird is a really lovely Mimì, singing with a beautiful, silvery tone, and always touching amid the mayhem going on around her. Gilbert’s Rodolfo is all reined-in intensity, though it took a few minutes for his voice to settle on opening night. Karani makes a glamorous, wonderfully self-assured Musetta opposite Ramgobin’s wide-eyed, ardent Marcello. Rea is a terrific Colline, forthright yet sensitive, his characterisation nicely contrasting with Thatcher’s fastidious, slightly camp Colline. There’s fine conducting, restrained, lyrical and admirably detailed from George Jackson, too.
La Bohéme is at Opera Holland Park, London, until 5 August.
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