Festival Opera
La boheme
Festival Theatre
Keith Bruce
five stars
THERE are essential details of the plot in Puccini's La boheme that resist updating, but Alex Olle, of Barcelona's La Fura dels Baus theatre company, quite simply ignores the inconsistencies of burning a manuscript from a writer using a laptop and the flickering candle of an embroiderer in a modern studio apartment in his pursuit of the compelling bigger picture of a quite superb contemporary production.
Poet Rodolfo and his pals are bohemians with first world problems. Their poverty is blatantly relative, on a set that recalls both the cover of Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti album and West Side Story. Eventually it transpires that their artists studios are in swanky duplex, with Mimi's attic apartment upstairs later occupied by a loved-up young couple. The sick soprano (a superb vocal and acting performance from Erika Grimaldi) is a bit of a downer that this self-obsessed coterie can't quite handle. When Colline the philosopher sells his coat for medicine for her, it is not the flash leather one he has worn all evening, but an "old coat" he retrieves from the closet.
Details like that are a delight in this production, like the introduction of a rough-sleeping bag lady at the starts of Act 3 to show how desperate for affection Mimi really is. That follows a visualisation of the Cafe Momus scene in Act 2 which I never expect to see bettered. Puccini's astonishingly clever music does all the work for a good staging here, but the pace and style with which the market traders, a superb children's chorus from the Edinburgh branch of the National Youth Choir of Scotland, and a brilliant rendition of Musetta's aria by Kelebogile Besong are deployed is truly breathtaking.
With conductor Giandrea Noseda and the orchestra of Teatro Regio Torino on top form in the pit, this is a classic staging of classic work.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here