Austria Puccini, La bohème: Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra of Vienna State Opera / Bertrand de Billy (conductor). Recorded (directed by Jakob Pitzer) at Vienna State Opera on 11.9.2022 and streamed on 14.2.2023. (JPr)
Production:
Production and Stage design – Franco Zeffirelli
Costume design – Marcel Escoffier
Chorus – Martin Schebesta
Cast:
Rodolfo – Vittorio Grigolo
Mimì – Anna Netrebko
Marcello – George Petean
Schaunard – Martin Hässler
Colline – Günther Groissböck
Musetta – Nina Minasyan
Benoît / Alcindoro – Marcus Pelz
Parpignol – Martin Müller
Sergeant of the Customs Guard – Wataru Sano
When a deliberate manufacturing of La Juive was cancelled earlier this season because of sickness with its introduced main singers it was changed by the Vienna State Opera’s venerable La bohème manufacturing. Some of the solid of the Halévy opera had been retained within the smaller roles with Vittorio Grigolo and Anna Netrebko parachuted in as Rodolfo and Mimì. For numerous causes in lots of opera homes world wide they’re personae non gratae however are typically welcomed in Vienna.
Franco Zeffirelli’s La bohème premiered in November 1963, and this was a recording of its 450th efficiency on eleventh September 2022! On considered one of my visits to Vienna round 40 years in the past I noticed this manufacturing and from all of the close-up camerawork it appeared just like the units, furnishings and a few of Marcel Escoffier’s costumes (in the event that they weren’t the artists’ personal) hadn’t been cleaned since I noticed them then. Of course, a sure shabbiness might solely add to the cinema-style realism of Zeffirelli’s familiarly uber-traditional and unashamedly romantic staging. There wouldn’t have been a number of rehearsal time, but a powerful solid of singing-actors meant that we obtained an actual slice of bohemian life in Zeffirelli’s trustworthy recreation of nineteenth-century Paris. The relatively giant Latin Quarter attic is relatively dusty and soiled; within the director’s typical trend the streets on two ranges exterior the Café Momus are excessively overcrowded (and to be trustworthy it was distinctly under-rehearsed right here) and the snowy Barrier d’Enfer relatively too darkish after six many years.
However, what we nonetheless noticed on the coronary heart of this La bohème was its important emotional fact and joie de vivre from a really mature-looking quartet of penniless – however aspiring – artists; Rodolfo and Marcello’s love pursuits, Mimì and Musetta; and the enthusiastic Café Momus crowd (together with some notably full of life kids). Sometimes new productions of Puccini’s opera can lack this.
This opera was the composer’s fourth for the stage and its Turin première was in 1896 and it’s nonetheless wonderful the way it polarised the critics on the time. The supply materials for Puccini’s librettists, Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, was Henry Murger’s novel Scènes de la vie de bohème they usually chosen 4 of the attribute episodes and imbued them with the spirit of the unique and though set in Paris about 1830, the story is a timeless one. Far too many individuals consider that what composers create is divorced from their private life and the world during which they lived, however this was positively not the case for Puccini. His masterpieces are sometimes biographical in nature and in La bohème there’s the memory of Puccini’s personal scholar days when he shared a room in Milan with Mascagni. In reality, his commencement train from the Milan Conservatoire, Capriccio sinfonico, is the primary music we hear because the curtain rises for La bohème.
Certain parts of Puccini’s musical fashion assist to substantiate the opera because the ‘masterpiece’ it undoubtedly is. He seems extra open to the idea of symphonic growth than different Italian opera composers, Verdi particularly. Based on this, Act II has been thought-about the ‘scherzo’ and Act III the ‘slow movement’ and there’s a better sense of La bohème – as along with his different operas – being ‘through-composed’ simply as in some symphonies.
Günther Groissböck was luxurious casting because the bookish Colline and he introduced all the reassurance of his resonant bass voice to ‘Vecchia zimarra, senti’ – his character’s peculiar Act IV farewell to his coat – which was as poignant and heartfelt as I can ever bear in mind. George Petean didn’t have the suavity of among the most interesting Marcellos, however he nonetheless sang sonorously and acted vividly, while Martin Hässler’s robustly sung Schaunard was extra stoic than some on this function. Meanwhile Markus Pelz had nice enjoyable along with his comedian vignettes because the lascivious Benoît and a deceived Alcindoro.
Nina Minasyan was a pert, charismatic Musetta who, although undoubtedly flighty and a gold-digger, proves on the finish that she has a coronary heart of gold. As Rodolfo, Vittorio Grigolo had among the keen puppy-dog exuberance of Rolando Villazón on the top of his profession and was a believably infatuated Rodolfo. Grigolo’s voice nonetheless has the ringing high quality and easy high notes an amazing Rodolfo wants.
Anna Netrebko was not essentially the most consumptive of Mimìs however sounded – admittedly by loudspeakers – at her absolute best bringing open lyricism and an impeccably managed and richly colored soprano voice to a job which she acted with dramatic credibility. There was nice chemistry all through with Grigolo’s Rodolfo and as Mimì’s demise drew nearer they introduced heart-wrenching tenderness to ‘Addio, dolce svegliare’ within the last act.
The propulsive baton of Bertrand de Billy drew some elegant enjoying from the Vienna State Opera Orchestra, would you count on something much less? There was exceptionally lustrous strings, shiny brass, and sweet-toned woodwind. Several – usually opaque – musical particulars appeared to be revealed and there have been quite a few really memorable musical moments.
Jim Pritchard