La Bohème: Not So Bohemian

Adriana Damato and Cast in La Bohème, Washington National Opera, 2007, photo by Karin Cooper

On Saturday night, Washington National Opera opened its fall season with an oh-so-edgy rendition of a tired old chestnut, Giacomo Puccini's La Bohème (the fifth mounting of this opera by WNO since 1984). The aim of this new production by Mariusz Treliński (created for the Teatr Wielki in Warsaw, whence Washington has also had his Butterfly and Andrea Chénier), laudable if misguided, was to create an image of opera somehow appealing to that infinitely desirable cadre of potential ticket buyers, young adults who have never been to an opera. If we are to take the world evoked by this Bohème at face value, those mysterious young future opera-goers are slender and reasonably attractive and regularly raid their seemingly endless wardrobes of trendy, tailored clothing before going to neon-lit clubs. They also wear silly costumes, enjoy vaguely smutty, transsexual floor shows, and shoot videos of each other. Curiously, they bear little resemblance to the desperately poor Bohemians of Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica's libretto. The story is based on episodes from Henry Murger's classic novel Scènes de la vie de bohème, which in fact is not about a loft full of pretty metrosexuals.

Because the singers were chosen more for their tender age and good looks, we are obliged to start there. Tenor Vittorio Grigolo (Rodolfo) and soprano Nicole Cabell (Musetta) have both traded on their striking physiques to sell solo albums of dubious musical worth, and they are beautiful to watch live. It must have been possible, however, to find a Mimi who was a little less chunky around the middle than Adriana Damato. The closeup headshots and video of the Italian soprano, the latter shot handheld in real time by Rodolfo, were not particularly forgiving, either. To complete the lead quartet, one could only wonder what Cabell's Musetta saw in the diminutive, nerdy photographer Marcello of Korean baritone Hyung Yun, over whom she towered.

Vittorio Grigolo, tenor

Was the visual beauty of the cast, such as it was, really worth the musical sacrifices? Vittorio Grigolo was actually not as bad as initially feared, judging from his side career as a pop singer. (At least Grigolo had the good sense to turn down Simon Cowell's invitation to join Il Divo.) He had the high notes for Rodolfo, if without the sustained power, consistently beautiful tone, and subtle approach to line that make the best performances of Puccini. Trevor Scheunemann was a more refined presence as Schaunard, and Paolo Pecchioli had a nice turn in the Act IV coat aria as Colline. At least Grigolo's voice came across the orchestra for the most part, with some low notes getting lost.

Both Damato and Cabell were near-inaudible with alarming frequency, as was Yun at times, although his round baritone was at least pleasant to hear when it came through. In the Act III quartet scene, when Marcello and Musetta are supposed to be having a knock-out, drag-down fight while Mimi and Rodolfo make up, Cabell and Yun looked like a dumbshow of exaggerated gestures at the back of the stage. When you cast primarily for looks and your singers need amplification, it's called musical theater and bringing it to the opera house will not draw young people to opera, although it may drive people who love opera away. It is also important to realize that just because they are young does not mean that these less experienced singers will come across any more naturally on the stage than older singers with bigger voices. In fact, much of the acting on Saturday night was stilted. For all of Grigolo's vaunted apprenticeship with Pavarotti, great acting is not a skill we would expect to have been transmitted.

Other Reviews: Tim Page, 'La Bohème,' Updated and Nearly Undone (Washington Post, September 17) T. L. Ponick, 'Boheme' in loft still true to Puccini (Washington Times, September 17) Kevin Chaffee, Buzz over a startling 'Boheme' (Washington Times, September 17) Charles T. Downey, Washington National Opera: La Ho-Hum (DCist, September 17) Tim Smith, Washington National Opera offers modern 'La Boheme' (Baltimore Sun, September 19)

If you want to recast Bohème into something about modern-day suffering artists, you would have to alter the libretto substantially: in fact, Jonathan Larson has already done it and to date it has probably brought no one to the theater to hear an opera. In fact, what opera companies should really do, rather than shoehorning an older opera into some modern story, is to sponsor more new operas on new stories. It is highly doubtful, however, that a thinking person really even needs to be told a story about his own age to make a real connection to it. Some of the most relevant and powerful modern operas -- Elektra, Salome, Die Frau ohne Schatten, Pelléas et Mélisande, Billy Budd, Jenůfa, Wozzeck, The Ghosts of Versailles, to name only a few -- are as far removed from our time as the mythological operas of the 17th century. Far better for Washington National Opera, if they truly want to expand audiences with young people, is the program for affordable tickets instituted this year, Access to Opera Tickets. For that, we congratulate them, but please do us all a favor and spend more of the budget on the cast list.

Only three of the remaining eight performances of La Bohème are sold out. This Sunday's matinee will be broadcast live to a big screen on the National Mall (September 23, 2 pm), and $25 tickets are being offered for the September 25 and 27 performances, through the Access to Opera Tickets program (sold only on the day of the performance, at the box office, starting at 10 pm). Perhaps the B cast, performing in alternation with this cast and featuring tenor Arturo Chacón-Cruz (who was pretty good in Madama Butterfly last season) as Rodolfo, will be better.

In a grand tradition celebrating the nexus of art and ostentation at the heart of opera, the patrons of Washington National Opera gathered in the Roof Terrace of the Kennedy Center after Saturday's performance for the Opening Night Gala. The guest list featured ambassadors (from Brazil, Kuwait, Afghanistan, India, Austria, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Poland, Peru, and Spain), politicians and government officials (Newt Gingrich, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, and General Peter Pace), the singers and artistic staff from the opera, and even some press riff-raff. Jazz standards played by Glenn Pearson and His Orchestra (yes, thank you for the Michel Legrand selections) and the drinks flowed freely throughout dinner. The best news presented by a handful of speakers was that the funding is in place to complete the company's Ring cycle. Although the murmuring of the guests seemed to indicate that Wagner is not high on their list of priorities, General Director Plácido Domingo is absolutely right that the complete performance of Francesca Zambello's American Ring cycle will likely be one of the most important events in the history of Washington National Opera. It will bring the company some much-needed international attention.

UPDATE:
See Michael Lodico's review of the B cast for this production, in the September 25 performance.