Review

La Bohème, Royal Opera House, review: in through one ear, out the other

A fair performance: Charles Castronovo as Rodolfo, Simona Mihai as Mimi
Touching: Charles Castronovo as Rodolfo, Simona Mihai as Mimi Credit: Alastair Muir

In 2017, Richard Jones’ staging of La Bohème replaced John Copley’s production of La Bohème – the latter being an unabashedly realistic interpretation that had charmed and satisfied Covent Garden audiences for over 40 years, happily showcasing many of the era’s greatest singers along the way.

I wonder whether Jones’ version – stylistically quirky and emotionally oblique as it is – will enjoy the same success or longevity.  It’s not one of his best shows. 

The presentation of the Café Momus scene as a panorama of the Passages of the Deuxième Arrondissement is stunning, in striking contrast to the wintry bleakness of the Barrière d’Enfer. But what is going on in the Bohemians’ grenier, which lies at the opera’s heart?

It’s just an empty attic, devoid of mattresses, books, paintings, clothes or any sign of dirty smelly improvised student life. Brightly lit and constructed out of untreated timber, the room seems to belong to the prairies rather than Paris and it deprives the opening and closing acts of their necessary warmth. And what is the meaning of all that aggressively sexist graffiti that gets scribbled over the walls in the opera’s penultimate episode?

The cast for this revival was to have been graced by Sonya Yoncheva, singing Mimi at Covent Garden for the first time. But she fell ill for opening night and Simona Mihai was drafted in at short notice. Mihai knows the production from previous revivals, and she gives a confident, sympathetic characterization of the wan tubercular seamstress doomed from her first entrance. The best of her singing came in the third act: ‘Donde lieta usci’ was gently phrased and touchingly felt. 

A fair performance: La Bohème
A fair performance: La Bohème Credit:  Alastair Muir

Her Rodolfo was Charles Castronovo. Svelte and handsome, he was plausibly the young Romantic poet and he gave the music everything he had, which was sometimes too much – a little more restraint and elegance to his ardour would not have come amiss.

His chums Marcello, Colline and Schaunard were robustly incarnated by Andrzej Filonczyk, Peter Kellner and Gyula Nagy; and Aida Garifullina made an auspicious house debut as a spirited Musetta, gamely removing her drawers during  ‘Quando m’en vo’, but finding humane dignity over Mimi’s deathbed.

Emmanuel Villaume conducts with plenty of virile exuberance, but the score’s subtler colours and moods were short-changed by the orchestra. It amounted to a fair performance, but in no way a special one.

License this content