Skip to main contentSkip to navigationSkip to navigation
Angel Blue (Mimi) and David Butt Philip (Rodolfo) in La Bohème
Angel Blue (Mimi) and David Butt Philip (Rodolfo) in La Bohème. Photograph: Tristram Kenton for the Guardian
Angel Blue (Mimi) and David Butt Philip (Rodolfo) in La Bohème. Photograph: Tristram Kenton for the Guardian

La Bohème review – buoyant, with a Rodolfo to treasure

This article is more than 9 years old
Coliseum, London
Jonathan Miller’s 2009 production is less revolutionary now, but this cast, especially David Butt Philip, is ebullient and full of warmth and skill

Jonathan Miller’s 2009 production of Puccini’s perfect little tearjerker seems to be becoming as much of a banker for ENO as the Rigolettos and Mikados of his company heyday. This is its third return, again under the observant eye of revival director Natascha Metherell, and it’s now a lighter, tighter affair. Some might complain that, for all its shabby-chic, Brassaï-ish trappings and its gorblimey factory girls, it’s also more of a standard Bohème than it first set out to be. And it retains some frustrations – Isabella Bywater’s set has a big chunk of wall obscuring, for a big chunk of the audience, the moment when Rodolfo and Mimi’s eyes first lock together. But still, a standard Bohème always works.

There is one very good reason to catch this revival, and that is the Rodolfo of David Butt Philip, a former Royal Opera Young Artist making his debut at ENO – a company whose English-language policy is crying out for singers like him to vindicate it. It’s an impressively complete performance: his Rodolfo is likable and unassuming on stage, but when he sings he unleashes a warm, easy-sounding tenor voice with plenty of heft and ping at the top. His first aria hymns Mimi’s little frozen hands in impeccable Italianate style.

Indeed, Butt Philip’s powerful tenor seems at times to lull the conductor Gianluca Marciano into thinking he can give the orchestra its head, and the buoyant playing from the pit occasionally makes the rest of the cast work hard to be heard. Angel Blue sings Mimi with a big, silvery soprano that isn’t quite controlled enough to be sufficiently expressive – but, former Miss Hollywood that she is, Blue has presence, as does Jennifer Holloway as a bright-sounding, Amazonian Musetta. The other Bohemians – George von Bergen (Marcello), George Humphreys (Schaunard) and Barnaby Rea (Colline) – are solid, and the twin cameos of Benoît and Alcindoro could hardly be cast more luxuriously than with Andrew Shore.

Until 6 December. Box office: 020-7845 9300. Venue: Coliseum, London.

Comments (…)

Sign in or create your Guardian account to join the discussion

Most viewed

Most viewed