BWW Reviews: ROYAL OPERA HOUSE - LA BOHEME, Cineworld Wandsworth, June 11 2015

Taking its template from the successful worldwide telecasts from The New York Met, The Royal Opera beamed the last ever show of John Copley's La Boheme into cinemas around the globe, a fitting way to finish 41 seasons in Covent Garden for this most loved version of a much loved work.

As you would expect from a production that has lasted so long, it's a traditional take on the Puccini tearjerker, with a Parisian garret that looks like a Parisian garret, a City Gate that looks like a City Gate and a Cafe Momus that brimmed and boiled with life as only the Latin Quartier can.

Of course, opera demands that you suspend your disbelief even more than other formats of theatre, and the verisimilitude stopped pretty quickly with the casting, who neither look nor move like starving student sans-culottes down to their last sou (I mean - look at the photo!). But they can sing - man, can they sing!

Joseph Calleja is wonderfully winning as Rodolfo, the poet who falls so spectacularly for Anna Netrebeko's beautiful, ailing, doomed Mimi. Just about keeping up with the lovers' compelling romance, a brilliant support cast were led by Jennifer Rowley, magnificent as tart-with-a-heart Musetta and Jeremy White's super turn as Benoit, the lads' lascivious landlord. Of course, hearing these singers in a cinema isn't quite the thrill that one would get live - but it's thrill enough!

Not everyone will enjoy the format of these one-off events. I enjoy the pre-recorded interviews during the intervals, but I don't care for the short conversations backstage with the cast, in costume but not in character, which I find intrusive. That's a little too much light being shed on the magic. But one of the aims of these telecasts is to extend the reach and appeal of what is too often seen as an exclusive corner of high culture and not, as it should be, a pricey, but richly entertaining, night out for anyone with the price of a round of drinks to spare.

As ever when I see opera (and I'm a late but enthusiastic aficionado) I discover something new that pleases me. This time it was the cosmopolitan nature of the cast with a Maltese, a Russian, an American and a Brit or two, all working under an Israeli conductor (the charming Dan Ettinger), delivering an Italian opera set in Paris. Like so much of the best things in life - sport, food, art - the only thing that matters in opera is the talent on show and our willingness to embrace them. (Okay, there's money, politics, egos etc, but that stuff can wait for another day.)

You can read more about the ROH's cinema season by clicking here and about Event Cinema at Cineworld by clicking here. Try something - you'll be hooked first time.

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