Review: Opera Philadelphia's Mimi and Rodolfo Walk Off into the Sunset in Yuval Sharon's LA BOHEME

In an opera filled with gorgeous music, it's hard to beat the end of LA BOHEME's Act One: "Si mi chiamano Mimi," "Che gelida manina" and "O soave fanciulla." It's the trifecta of arias about young love.

If only tragedy and sadness weren't going to catch up with the pair, Mimi and Rodolfo, and their friends, in the succeeding three "tales from the Bohemian life" (as the work's source material was called). But wait. Director Yuval Sharon to the rescue!

The version conceived by Sharon, which just finished out its successful run at Opera Philadelphia--having been seen with different casts at the other companies that co-commissioned this production--is played in reverse:

• Mimi doesn't die at the end but the beginning.
• Mimi and Rodolfo (wonderfully sung by soprano Kara Goodrich and tenor Joshua Blue), as well as Musetta and Marcello (well portrayed by Melissa Joseph and Troy Cook), don't see their relationships at a low point nearing the finish but closer the start.
• Musetta doesn't sing her famous waltz on Christmas near the beginning but near the end, still making Marcello jealous (though for less defined reasons than usual).
• And, of course, as previously alluded to, Mimi and Rodolfo meet at the end, not at the start of the opera.

Oh, yes, and there's a third pair in this version: Colline and Schaunard (thoughtfully sung by Adam Lau and Benjamin Taylor, who had the lovely aria to his overcoat in his favor), the buddies who, according to the director, were a gay couple "hiding in plain sight."

Two other roles usually performed by a single singer--the landlord Benoit and Musetta's older "date," Alcindoro--have been snipped from the action, while an intrusive narrator (Anthony Martinez-Briggs) was added. He seems to be there to help us make sense of the reordering of the scenes but says little (annoyingly, in English, though the rest remains in the original Italian) at the start of each of them and ultimately fails at his task.

This simply designed take designed by John Conklin with lighting by John Torres, using a raked turntable, may not be the ultimate telling of the story--certainly not a production for all times--but it does make its point. For someone who's seen the Met's "classic" Zeffirelli production more times than he can remember, it was an opportunity to stop and consider whether the company should bite the bullet and put that one in mothballs for something where the scenery doesn't get star billing. (But who to entrust with a new one, considering the lifeless creations that have shown up in the name of TRAVIATA, RIGOLETTO and TOSCA in recent years?)

A version like this, starting with Mimi's death and looking backwards over the lives of the Bohemians to the blooming of love, could work, though the new Act One (i.e., the end) is a bit lackluster and I thought it was not poignant enough. However, the new ending (i.e., the original Act One) works like gangbusters.

Making the opera move cinematically, with no intermissions and barreling ahead for 100 minutes or so, makes perfect sense, especially with good singers. I especially enjoyed Blue's (whom I've seen at Glimmerglass and at a Joyce DiDonato masterclass) Rodolfo and Goodrich's Mimi (who I haven't heard before but hope to again). But the narrator wasn't needed any more than in the version we've always seen.

While Sharon's Director's Note in the program talks about doing away with "the tyranny of chronology"--telling the story using traditional logic that goes from beginning to end--the composer and his librettists don't appear caught in anything but showing snapshots of a group of people, as they would do in their next opera, TOSCA, as well.

Yes, there were tears shed as this production ended, as Mimi and Rodolfo descended the stairs from the garret to meet their friends in going to Café Momus and threw off a few sweet high notes. But that happens too when the traditional order is followed.

At the most recent BOHEME I saw at the Met, there were tears aplenty that had nothing to do with the overproduced scenes of Paris there. It's Puccini and his librettists, Illica and Giacosa, that "had me from hello," as certainly as it does in the sure hands of Opera Philadelphia's orchestra under a maestro as well schooled as Corrado Rovaris and the right singers. Oh no, they can't take that away from me.

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