Mimi meets Death in Glyndebourne’s La Bohème

If you’re looking for a stripped-back production of Puccini’s well-loved opera La Bohème, Glyndebourne’s new version may be for you. Young Dutch director Floris Vissar and his German dramaturge Klaus Bertisch have combined the three different stage sets: the Bohemians’ garret (Acts 1 and 4), Café Momus (Act 2), and the border post (Act 3), into one.

As Vissar says, “Putting the entire production in one image is my style of work”. He sees it as “a way of really focusing on the characters… the most radical way of avoiding the literalness of Puccini”. His idea was to focus on Act 3, and searching Paris for a location they suddenly came upon a small cobbled street that went into the distance and dipped down. People walking away simply disappeared, justifying its name Passage d’Enfer. This was it — a set for all four acts.

Whether it works in place of the Bohemians ’ garret , others may judge more favourably than me, but at the Act 2 Caf é Momus there are outside tables on the right, and people enter the Act 3 border post from a gap in the wall on the left. It is clearly intended to be bleak. There is no air of romantic magic with clever lighting, which less expensive productions usually seek to create. Here the lighting is extremely cold, and a romantic atmosphere pretty much absent.

Mimi’s humble candle serves as a metaphor for life. It sputters as Death goes by, personified by a tall, gaunt man in a long coat who stares at Mimi, and accompanies her at the start, walking downstage to Rodolfo. In the final moments of the opera she accompanies him upstage after rising from her deathbed. Sentimentality is entirely absent, which is clearly the director’s intent. The trouble with this device is that the figure of Death had such enormous stage presence that one’s eye was drawn to him, ready to guess whether he would move or simply stand still. Death was on stage throughout almost the entire opera — an extensive and obtrusive trigger warning.

Fortunately the singing was excellent, the 1930/40s costumes entirely appropriate, and the London Philharmonic firmly conducted under the baton of Jordan de Souza. The Bohemians themselves were well chosen: Daniel Scofield as a down-to-earth, even irascible Marcello, South African Luthando Qave as an engagingly urbane Schaunard, showing a stark contrast to Bulgarian bass Ivo Stanchev, shabbily dressed as the philosopher Colline, and South Korean tenor Schoon Moon as a brilliant Rodolfo with a gloriously ringing tone. His Mimi, Chilean soprano Yaritza V é liz sang with powerful passion, and South African soprano Vuvu Mpofu made a charming Musetta.

Death was played by Christopher Lemmings, who doubled as the toy seller Parpignol. In that role he adopted the same eerily silent presence at the rear of the stage, holding his balloons, before coming forward to give them to the children.

Here was a Boh è me for those jaded by sentimentality and romance, and the audience gave it a surprisingly positive welcome. Perhaps they had yearned for something different, or perhaps they loved the singing of the principal couple (Schoon Moon and Yaritza V é liz), which was heart warming.

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