Bohemian tragedy

DAVID NICHOLSON enjoys a tragic view of the artist’s life by a company hit by redundancies, industrial action and public protests

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IMPOVERISHED, making do with less, and getting money where you can are all attributes of aspiring artists living in a garret in Paris, but also the Welsh National Opera itself.

Faced with funding cuts over the last couple of years the company has been beset with difficulties as its chorus and orchestra have been hit by redundancies, industrial action and public protests. 

WNO has staggered through its financial crisis and putting on sure-fire classic successes like Puccini’s La Boheme is a guarantee of bums on seats, and bringing welcome revenue. The company’s second offering in its autumn season is that perennial doomed love story ending in tragedy which is Puccini’s hallmark.

This ravishing adaptation of the Italian maestro’s classical love story started life at Glyndbourne’s opera festival in 2022 as the creation of director Floris Visser’s take on Puccini’s tear jerker.

The scenery is pared back to the bare essentials with all the action taking place on the backdrop of a Parisian cobbled street, and lets us visit the freezing apartment that the four young artists live in, Cafe Momus in the Latin Quarter, and the city’s border in the third act.

This device works beautifully as Carlos Cardoso’s poet Rodolpho, and Alexia Voulgaridou’s seamstress Mimi meet for the first time and fall in love. Cardoso and Voulgaridou’s opening arias as he warms her frozen hands and tells her about himself, as she reciprocates and sings of her name being Mimi is one of the most famous in opera. The intensity of their singing and acting as the young lovers is so moving and convincing that it genuinely brings tears to the eyes.

Slightly less convincing is the director’s device of having Death, in the shape of a black-clad Christopher Lemmings, stalking Mimi though each scene. While the symbolism of her eventual death is well worked in the final denouement, it jars as Lemming doubles up as toymaker, Parpignol, in the Cafe Momus scene. The problem is that as the brooding figure of Death as well it makes the toymaker very reminiscent of the child-catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

The Cafe Momus scene is a joyous explosion of life and love and brings the stunning Sofia Kirwan-Baez as Musetta back into the life of Rodolpho’s friend Marcello, who is played by a brilliant Navasard Hakobyan. Kirwan-Baez is a force of nature and imbues Musetta with all the sex appeal and vibrancy that underlines her operatic character.

The presence of Lemmings as Death leading the dead Mimi away tugs even harder at the heartstrings in the final scene as Rodolpho realising that she has gone sings her name with utter anguish.

It would take a heart of stone not to be moved by this famous final death scene where the cast and orchestra bring the audience to tears with Puccini’s masterpiece.

Runs until November 26. Box office: 029 2063-5000, wno.org.uk.

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