United States Puccini, La bohème: Soloists, Refrain and Orchestra of San Francisco Opera / Ramón Tebar (conductor). Warfare Memorial Opera Home, San Francisco, 3.6.2025. (HS)
San Francisco Opera hasn’t mounted Puccini’s evergreen La bohème for nearly a decade, which is a very long time for an opera that appeared to return round each different 12 months (45 occasions within the firm’s 102 years). This revival of the 2017 Toulouse-Lautrec-infused co-production (with Houston Grand Opera and Canadian Opera Firm) launched some shining new faces and voices to native audiences.
Within the first of 9 performances (with two casts), the outcomes might have been a bit blended, however the essence of the opera got here via vividly. Main credit score goes to the detailed and apt work by revival director Katherine M. Carter (herself making her home debut) and supple, expressive conducting by Spanish maestro Ramón Tebar, who customary a memorable Elixir of Love right here in 2023.
The John Caird manufacturing opens and closes behind a scrim that options Toulouse-Lautrec-style pictures of Parisians, and framed variations of the artist’s works create well timed reminders within the background. The units conjure late nineteenth-century Paris vividly: the younger males’s garret with all of the aptitude of a crash pad, a rowdy Latin Quarter and a down-market city-gate neighborhood for Act III. The garret splits into two elements to rotate into the group scene seamlessly, and from the city-gate scene again to the garret for the finale, properly becoming Puccini’s unique 4 acts into the modern-day, one-intermission format.
Directing touches add to the verisimilitude. The 4 inventive younger males work together with sensible bumptiousness, and every has distinct traits. We are able to inform by how they carry themselves and their gestures which one is a author, painter, musician or thinker. Mimì is dressed plainly however her youth reveals via. Musetta is a comic book enjoyment of a tight-fitting and ruffled pink robe.
Rodolfo takes notes as Mimì sings her introductory aria, and he quotes from his pocket book within the Act IV duet once they sing one another’s tunes from the Act I like duet. In Act III, Marcello is portray a mural on the tavern’s exterior wall which provides a frisson to one of many jabs he will get later from a departing Musetta (‘house-painter!’).
Vocally, the standouts within the (largely) younger solid have been Andrea Carroll’s saucy Musetta and Lucas Meacham’s intense Marcello. Carroll, making her home debut, was a whirlwind of coquettishness with a smooth lyric soprano that bounced via her music. She stole the highlight from the second she entered, a pink beam of sunshine following her via the group. She was a personality used to getting consideration. Her showcase aria, ‘Quando m’en vo’, was every little thing it ought to be – flamboyant and musically primed, and aimed sideways at her former sweetheart, Marcello.
Meacham, for his half, responded with an ideal mixture of irritation and lust. He has sung large roles right here, together with Figaro in Barber of Seville, Don Giovanni and Eugene Onegin, and his stage presence and vibrant baritone made all of it really feel pure with out lacking a notice.
Debut soprano Karen Chia-ling Ho delivered Mimì’s melodies with a smooth edge however sufficient depth to make musical climaxes eye-opening. It was a powerful first go, even when the which means of the lyrics didn’t at all times come via clearly. It took some time for the voice of tenor Pene Pati (a favourite with San Francisco audiences since his days as an Adler Fellow) to settle in, however when it did their duets have been candy. Particularly touching was the ultimate scene, wherein their voices melded collectively entrancingly.
Romanian bass Bogdan Talos made his firm debut as Colline (the thinker), and second-year Adler Fellow Samuel Kidd had a easy baritone as Schaunard (the musician). Veteran baritone Dale Travis introduced comedian timing and strong vocalizing to the roles of Benoît the owner and Musetta’s sugar-daddy, Alcindoro.
The Act I meet-cute, wherein Mimì and Rodolfo introduce themselves to one another shyly and find yourself going off arm-in-arm, unfolded at an unhurried tempo so the main points of their attraction may emerge deftly. Their eye-to-eye connection was intoxicating, and each singers have been pure and plausible. The group in Act II may have been managed higher, however the interchange among the many Bohemians and Alcindoro discovered a pleasant rhythm, and the buddies rearranged themselves theatrically to watch the unfolding comedy.
The contrasts between the 2 {couples} in Act III have been additionally nicely outlined. Regardless of Mimì’s growing sickness, she and Rodolfo can’t bear to half from one another, highlighted by her ‘Donde lieta uscì’, fastidiously phrased if considerably understated. Marcello, nonetheless, has had it with Musetta’s flirting with different males and, within the closing quartet, the insults they toss at one another boost the variations, as meant, contrasting with the sincerity of Mimì’s and Rodolfo’s promise to not half fairly but.
The ultimate scene’s trajectory began with the 4 males moping over their misfortunes after which amusing themselves with play-jousting and dancing – staged with juicy insouciance. Musetta arrives with a dying Mimì, and when every little thing received critical it by no means felt synthetic.
By the point the curtain got here down, Puccini’s opera had labored its magic. Much more than the singing, it was the deftness of the directing and, most particularly, the orchestra’s surefooted dealing with of the rating that made it so. Each phrase emerged with a kind of inevitability, and the depth rose and ebbed with out fussiness. And Puccini’s orchestral scene-painting, a treasure of this rating, was carried out as properly because the Toulouse-Lautrec pictures on the set.
Harvey Steiman
Manufacturing:
Unique manufacturing – John Caird
Revival director – Katherine M. Carter
Designer – David Farley
Lighting – Michael Clark
Refrain director – John Keene
Solid:
Mimì – Karen Chia-ling Ho
Rodolfo – Pene Pati
Musetta – Andrea Carroll
Marcello – Lucas Meachem
Colline – Bogdan Talos
Schaunard – Samuel Kidd
Benoît / Alcindoro – Dale Travis
