La Bohème

Vancouver Opera
Queen Elizabeth Theatre
Hamilton at Georgia,
Vancouver, BC

May 3, 6, 8 ,10 ,14

Opera in four acts
by Giacomo Puccini
Libretto by Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica
after the novel Scenes de la vie bohème, by Henri Murger

in Italian with English subtitles

Conductor: Jonathan Darlington
Director: David Gately

Cast (in order of appearance)

“Marcello”: Jeff Mattsey
”Rodolfo”: Theodore Green
”Colline”: Nathan Berg
”Schaunard”: Alan Corbishley
”Mimi”: AiLan Zhu
”Musetta”: Kathleen Brett

Chorus Director: Leslie Uyeda
Children's Chorus Director: Leslie Dala
Set Designer: Claude Girard
Costume Designer: Claude Girard and Robert Prevost
Lighting Designer: TBA
Musical Preparation: Leslie Dala
Stage Manager: Sheila Munn
Assistant Director: Ann Hodges
Wig Designer: Stacey Butterworth
English Surtitles: Stuart Tarbuck

The performance lasts approximately 2 hours and 30 minutes
There will be two intermissions.

First produced at Turin, February 1, 1896
First produced by Vancouver Opera November 5, 1960

Reviewed By: Caesi Bevis and Christiaan Bernard

A “He Said, She Said” Review…

Caesi: My first thoughts when the curtain rose and the male performers began to sing, was “Wow - these guys can actually sing well!” They all were equally strong vocalists as well as the acting; costumes and set all came together as a high-end production as far as operas go.

The show continued on as a “perfect 10” all the way to the end. The acting and singing were believable. The women are equally strong singers. It is very well cast with the performers looking age appropriate, and fitting their roles. The sets are elaborate set changes where the audience can be left wondering ‘how did they rebuild an entire set that fast during a ‘pause’ or ‘intermission’? The sets come complete with falling snow and a warm ‘fire’ on stage to warm the cold struggling “artisans”. The costumes, especially “Musetta’s” bright red long dress is stunning!

The storyline is captivating and could be even a present-day story about young struggling “artisans” trying to make it as a writer, artist and music teacher. As a writer, I found myself bracing, wincing, and holding back tears during the scene where the “writer” burns several acts of his “play” that he wrote, to create warmth for a few passing moments for himself and his fellow flat-dwellers. I realized at that point how involved I was in the story unfolding on stage.

Only one ongoing scene didn’t make sense to me, as I need to read the opera, I think, to understand something. There is a scene where a gate is being opened by guards, to allow people to pass to enter into an area, which also happens to include a pub where some of the characters are now working. Why would a gate be keeping people from a pub? I did ask others who are more “expert” on opera, and the consensus seems to be the fence was more symbolic of “Mimi’s” in ability to access a better life or relationships.

Up until now, I thought I had a favourite opera, “Lucia di Lammermoor”, followed by two close seconds. This performance of “La Bohème” is so over the top amazing it is easily worth seeing more than once - if you can get tickets!

End note: We attended the before-talk on the history of the writing of the opera, as well. For those of you who have never attended one, we found this information very helpful, interesting, and presented in a very entertaining way by Doug Tuck, Publicist for the Vancouver Opera. It was very interesting to here about Puccini’s assertive stop-at-nothing mother who was determined to have her son become a successful opera score writer - and although broke after her husband died leaving her a widow with young children to finish raising, she even petitioned the queen and family members to obtain funding to send her son off to music school to be trained as a writer. Much of the storyline of La Bohème is auto-biographical. It was also really interesting to compare the timeline of when all this was happening in Puccini’s life, trying to get started as a struggling musician and realize it was overlapping the same time frame my great-great-aunt was growing up - an aunt who lived long enough that I knew her in my young life. I couldn’t help but wonder if my great-great-aunt had ever heard the La Bohème music or seen it performed.

Christiaan: Over all impression is Wow!!! Huge Wow factor, but I guess that's not really enough or an appropriate response to write to the general public.

I thought the stage design (can't remember the exact word to describe them) was very well done. My favourite as you know was the set for the outside snow scene. I truly felt as if I was looking out the window on a snowy day, somewhere in Europe watching events unfold. It was so spectacular and I would say from the audience reaction, that this isn't my own private
thought.

The only complaint I had was the scene at the café, when if first began there was way too much happening. It was too busy, and distracting to listen to the music/singing, and pay attention to the main characters, since the secondary actors where much more active and interesting to watch. I think they could have had all the activity on the stage, before the main characters arrived, since it was in itself very entertaining to watch and I wanted to take in everything at once. Best way to describe what I was feeling is “annoyed”, annoyed that I couldn't watch everything going on, since there was simply too much.

Loved when the little dog was brought onto the stage, thought it was a very nice touch, the smoke coming out of the chimney was very cool too. The small details really took everything over the top.

If every Opera were this entertaining, I would say that I'm a convert and likely will be a regular.

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