JOHN Hart (Letters, May 24) is of course entitled to his opinion on Scottish Opera’s La Bohème, but he does seem to have seen and heard it with his grumpy hat on. In the course of a life attending operas we shall all encounter productions which don’t appeal to us, sometimes at the grandest opera houses with the most prestigious opera companies in the world, but in this case there is a rationale behind the setting which can be found either by attending a presentation by the director and designer, which many of us did, or more simply by buying a programme and reading beyond the cast list.
A constant stream of totally naturalistic operas populated by old style “park and bark” singers, which would perhaps please Mr Hart, would become terribly boring. In the same way as the Scottish Opera Tosca was updated to the time of Mussolini it is perfectly reasonable to update La Bohème to the Paris of the 1920s, and to feature in the chorus and in the cast figures who would have been present and well known at the time. Josephine Baker was famous amongst these figures, and it is valid in setting the scene of these times to have her singing her well-known songs, including J’ai Deux Amours, in a prologue, and a (very good) accordionist playing during a scene change (a recent Noel Coward play at the Citizens’ Theatre used one of the cast singing his songs for the same purpose).
It is perhaps insulting to an audience to imply that it is incapable of using its imagination, and needs to be presented always with literal interpretations of scenes – perhaps with signs saying “this is a garret” or “this is a square with a café”. Anyone who goes to opera will appreciate the frequent need to exercise imagination – literal rainbow bridge to Valhalla anyone? Stage directions too are not set in stone – in this case Mimi, having come from her fleamarket world into the imaginary world of the bohemians, has disappeared again to whence she came.
I have attended a number of operas in my time where I have been tempted to shut my eyes and just listen to the music. For the avoidance of doubt this was not such an occasion – I did appreciate and enjoy the production, as, from the response, did most of the audience.
Ian Szymanski,
152 East Princes Street,
Helensburgh.
HAVING seen the first of many productions of La Bohème at the Cosmo cinema in Glasgow in the 1960s, I must respond to John Hart.
My wife and I had our first experience of the balcony at the Theatre Royal on Saturday night – what a successful transformation that has been (best £11.50 I’ve spent for a long time). The costumes were very imaginative, the lighting superb and the music, as always, sublime.
Production directors must be allowed to innovate. The additional scenes added interest to the spectacle and boy, did the audience show their appreciation at the end. There was prolonged applause.
Andrew P Gallen,
14 Briar Gardens, Glasgow.
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