The world’s most popular and most performed opera is Giacomo Puccini’s tragic tear-jerker La bohéme (1896). Ever since its world premiere at Turin’s Teatro Regio, conducted by soon-to-be legendary Arturo Toscanini, the work has been beloved by all romantics and has never fallen out of favor.
Its libretto by those wily craftsmen Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa (Tosca and Madam Butterfly) is a masterful deconstruction of Henri Murger’s much more earthy Scenes de la vie de bohéme as we follow four penniless friends living in a drafty garret in Paris as they struggle for a livelihood and love.
We connect with them instantly: Rodolfo (tenor Michael McDermott), an unpublished poet; Marcello (baritone Edward Parks), an unsuccessful painter; Schaunard (baritone Navasard Hakobyan), a musician; and Colline (bass Cory McGee), a philosopher without theories. All are cold and miserable, but their common poverty keeps their friendship intact. They sword fight with fireplace tools, they dance a silly jig, and hoodwink their landlord into not paying their overdue rent.
Colline’s one job playing the violin for an eccentric patron with his sick parrot has given them enough money to splurge at Café Momus on Christmas eve. Rodolfo stays behind a few minutes to finish a newspaper article, when a small knock at the door brings in Mimi (soprano Yaritza Véliz), a destitute maker of paper flowers who also lives in the building. “My candle has gone out. Can you light it for me,” she asks demurely. That one spark sets both their hearts aflame. The couple fall instantly in love and vow to stay together until spring.
At the cafe, we meet Marcello’s former lover Musetta (soprano Brittany Renee), a hopeless tease and flirt whose latest lover is old but rich Alcindoro (baritone Héctor Vásquez). She catches Marcello’s eye and tricks Alcindoro into paying all the bills as she flees with Marcello.
The setup is sturdy, the characters are individualistic, their camaraderie is real, and it is all washed with Puccini’s expert musicality. No wonder this opera is so beloved. Who can withstand those sweeping melodies, the aching romance, the thunder of love inherent in those plangent phrases? It is gangbuster gorgeous music and works its magic seamlessly.
So why is Houston Grand Opera’s production, co-produced with Canadian Opera Company and San Francisco Opera, so bland and uneventful? Where did the passion go?
No one connects in this version that is set amid numerous paintings and overhead swags like painters canvass. No one knows anybody. McDermott is tentative and soft singing when he should peel forth like a gong. Véliz has a creamy deep and powerful instrument but overshadows McDermott in the duets. Renee is a fine Musetta, and Parks’ Marcello is even better, a sort of chocolaty baritone with plenty of resonance and fire. (For me, he made this wan show work.)
All the others were very proficient, full of talent, fine singer/actors, but there was nothing there. Could it have been the lackadaisical conducting of maestro Karen Kamensek that kept the pulse from quickening? It sounded like Puccini (who can hide that) but the fire’s been banked. Even the always sure-footed direction by award-winning John Caird was untidy and lacked focus.
The whole evening didn’t coalesce. Parts worked, but overall, not so much. A bohéme without passion is not bohéme. It must purr, roar, succumb, sigh, blaze. This valentine to young love has frayed edges.
La bohéme continues through February 14.at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Saturday, Thursday and Wednesday; 2 p.m. Sundays and Friday, February 14 at Wortham Theater Center, 501 Texas. For more information call 713-228-6737 or visit houstongrandopera.org. $25-$255.
