Sydney Opera House, Stalls K44 (AUD118.)
Conductor – Tom Woods; Rodolfo – Martin Buckingham,
Marcello – Samuel Dundas, Colline – David Parkin, Schaunard – Shane Lowrencev,
Benoit – John Bolton Wood, Mimi – Natalie Aroyan, Musetta – Sharon Prero,
Alcindoro – Adrian Tamburini.
Story. The four
men are poor artists living together, they decide to go to Café Momus. While Rudolfo stays behind to finish up
writing, Mimi shows up asking for a light.
The two eventually fall in love.
As their relationship goes on, Mimi feels Rudolfo is too jealous;
Rudolfo actually acts out that way knowing that Mimi is very sick and that he
cannot provide for her. The two
part. A few months later Musette – an on-and-off
girlfriend of Marcello – brings in Mimi to the house. Mimi dies soon afterwards.
Well, what I wrote above is the story about the main
characters Rudolfo and Mimi. There is a “side
show” about Marcello’s love with the free-spirited Musette. And Puccini (or rather the librettist
Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica) doesn’t hesitate to throw in a lot of
drama. Strangely, it makes a story that
is quite simplistic on paper a rather compelling opera. I have seen this opera a couple of times,
including ones on Broadway, and have been moved to different extents each
time. This performance is no exception.
Indeed this is probably the best opera I have seen from
Opera Australia. Later on I plan to
quibble with the performance a bit, but – all said and done – I enjoyed
it. I am not sure my companions (Ruth,
Stephen, Tim, and Alyson) were that impressed.
Their major complaints were (i) the surtitles were so far above the
stage that they had to move their heads up and down too much; and (ii) there
are not that many singable tunes. (i)
was also a problem for me, compounded by my strained neck. I told them with Puccini they should listen
to how the voices work with the orchestra, and oftentimes the voice is used to
accompany the melody that is played by the orchestra. In most of Puccini’s operas one can find
several singable melodies. In La Boheme
there are quite a few familiar arias, but they are not ones that you find
yourself humming as you amble along – not for most people, anyway.
My biggest complaint would be most of the singing was
belted out. One would think in such a
tragedy soft singing would be the order of the day; and one would be
wrong. While a booming voice carried
above a full orchestra is impressive, the effect may have been better with a
soft whisper. Of course the latter is much
more difficult to pull off.
Natalie Aroyan, playing Mimi, did okay. However, it would be difficult to make a case
that she is malnourished, so the audience ends up having to do more suspension
of belief than usual. Buckingham as
Rudolfo was good most of the time, but his voice sometimes broke off,
especially at the beginning. The other
three men did quite well. Musette was
believable as a flirtatious woman and delivered the aria in Act II with gusto.
Overall, I enjoyed the evening.
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