★★★☆☆
Every opera house needs a heart-wringing, durable production of La bohème, if only for commercial purposes. Nothing entertains affluent old people more than the spectacle of starving young people dying to Puccini.
For 41 years the Royal Opera had such a production. Unfortunately the show that opens its new season isn’t it. Two years ago John Copley’s much-loved staging was finally sent the way of poor Mimì in the opera. In its place comes a production by Richard Jones that is neither brazenly radical nor meticulously rooted in period, neither breathtakingly picturesque nor shockingly stripped down. In fact, the first adjective that springs to mind is routine and the second is dull.
True, Jones’s set designer, Stewart Laing, has one purple patch of