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La Bohème ever young, revived at HGO Houston
Wortham Theater Center
04/11/2008 - and April 13*, 17, 23, 26, May 1, 3
Giacomo Puccini: La Bohème
Ana Maria Martinez (Mimi), Garrett Sorenson (Rodolfo), Albina Shagimuratova (Musetta), Joshua Hopkins (Marcello), Nikolay Didenko (Colline), Christopher Feigum (Schaunard), Gwynne Howell (Benoît/Alcindoro), Beau Gibson (Parpignol), Tommy Ajai George (Sergeant), Wesley Landry (Customs Guard)
Houston Grand Opera Orchestra and Chorus, Patrick Summers (conductor), James Robinson (director)
Allen Moyer (set designer), James Schuette (costumes), Richard Bado (chorus master), Karen Reeves (children’s chorus director), Stephen Strawbridge (lighting designer)
One cannot envision an opera house worthy of its name that does not have La Bohème as a staple of its repertoire. The popularity of Puccini’s early romance is ubiquitous, and performances of it are so numerous and frequent that a dedicated operagoer could be forgiven if complaining of Bohème-fatigue. It vies with Carmen as the most popular opera ever composed. What is left to be discovered here, what fresh insights to be uncovered?
After spending so many nights at the opera with this favorite, isn’t it best enjoyed away from the opera house? Instead, find the greatest recording and play that on the home sound system whenever one is moved to relive its passions? Thankfully, that is not so. An anecdote from its conductor Patrick Summers refutes this.
According to Summers, the Houston opera’s resident conductor, Puccini and the great conductor Arturo Toscanini were traveling together from Milan to Rome and stopped in an Italian country town. Once there, they saw that a performance of La Bohème was being given that day, and they bought tickets anonymously. The performance and singers were dreadful, and the conductor totally inept. Toscanini, owning up to his reputation as a perfectionist, was furious. “Aren’t you furious too?” he reproached the composer.
“Yes,” the Maestro replied, “but what beautiful music!”
That story, Summers concedes, isn’t true. Yet, it does show the essential truth of La Bohème – that the opera, in the intervening 112 years since its premiere, has taken on a life of its own. So much so that we can believe that even its own creator could step away from his composition to admire this masterwork in all its glory.
Our rediscovery is perhaps not in discovering something new and unknown, but in reliving its essence in live performances. That essence is beautifully uncovered at the Houston Grand Opera, in a production jointly sponsored with the New York City Opera and the Glimmerglass Opera.
Stage director and scenic designer James Robinson moves the opera’s action three-quarters of a century forward, from Paris of the 1830’s to the capital as it nears the end of World War I. Chorus and supernumeraries move about, hoisting placards for “paix” and workers’ rights. Musetta arrives in a bright red motor car in Act 2. Act 3 begins with the huff of a locomotive’s steam stack. These touches give the production a sense of fun, but there seems little dramatic rationale to move the action from its original conception in the time of the Bourbon Restoration.
More troubling is Robinson’s conception of the “Bohemian”’s garret apartment, which squeezes the principals and others in a rectangular box-like construct perched above the stage. It also serves to muffle the singers’ sound. This becomes jarringly apparent when Mimi and Rodolfo step forward and sing on the apron of the stage at the end of Act 1 to allow for an instantaneous scene change from garret to the Café Momus for Act 2.
Yet, musical values triumph in this production. At the helm of this production are Puerto Rican soprano Ana Maria Martinez and American tenor Garrett Sorenson. Martinez, an alumna of the Houston Opera Studio, is a favorite with audiences here, and reprises the role she sang for HGO in 2002. Martinez’ return is heralded for obvious reasons – the voice is creamy, its high register secure, and she is blessed with the resonance of a mezzo soprano in her middle register. It is not large or “pushed,” but it fills the theater, and is uncommonly expressive, in tone and articulation. Hers is a performance that grows from act to act. By the final duet, “Sono andati?” Martinez, who sings almost all of the final act on her back in bed, has given a transcendent interpretation and etches herself into our hearts as one of the most memorable of Mimi’s.
As Rodolfo, Sorenson is lacking the tonal bloom and passionate lyric thrust we expect of the poet’s music. What he has is a pleasing bright tenor with facility in the upper register, clear articulation and lyrical élan. For instance, at the end of the Act 1 love duet, he does not jump for the interpolated high-C that almost every tenor attacks, but sings the note an octave below, as Puccini composed it. This creates a subtle harmonic touch – not an operatic feat – with the soprano at high C and the tenor at middle C. His stage movements and vocal poise are wonderfully assured; several times, he carries Martinez in his arms as they sing – an incredible feat, physically and musically, and riveting theater.
The romantic foil for the couple is Marcello and Musetta, the painter and the flirt. Among the men, the vocal plum goes to Canadian baritone Joshua Hopkins as Marcello. His rich and robust voice seems to give the warmth that his “Bohemian” colleagues are craving during the Parisian wintertime. His characterization is equally strong, which was something he needs to counter the force of his Musetta, the Russian soprano Albina Shagimuratova.
Puccini gave his character of Musetta plenty of opportunities to become the cynosure on the stage, and Shagimuratova is a force of nature to take advantage of every one of them. Whether blowing kisses from the rumble seat of her motor car, or tossing crockery from the tables of the Café Momus, this Musetta shows considerable talent for brash stage gestures and the broadly comic. The voice is a high soprano with a lush lyricism and agility – exactly what is needed for “Quando me’n vo’ soletta per la via.” She is less successful muting her performance for the contemplative Musetta in the last two acts, but frankly that is not why we remember Musetta. (Shagimuratova, a current member of the Houston Opera Studio, previously had a spectacular turn as the Queen of the Night in HGO’s Die Zauberflöte this season.)
The remaining men are the renowned Welsh basso cantante Gwynne Howell, in the dual roles of Benoît and Alcindoro. Russian bass Nikolay Didenko as Colline wins applause with his arioso on selling his coat for Mimi, “Vecchia zimarra.”
Patrick Summers conducts the Houston Grand Opera Orchestra in a taut and lustrous interpretation. This conductor, who returns to this opera in the pit after a decade’s absence, shows himself as a master of this music. Summers is one of the best opera conductors on this continent or any other.
Gary N. Reese
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