A Conductor's Opera Music and Vision 20 giugno

A Conductor's Opera
A new production of Puccini's 'La bohème'
at Rome's Teatro dell'Opera,
reviewed by GIUSEPPE PENNISI

La bohème is one of Giacomo Puccini's favorite operas. The audience normally appreciates its delicate melodies and tunes, its sweet arias and its passionate duets as well as its lively ensembles, especially the rhythmic concertato at the end of the second act. Generally, they are thought to be easy to memorize and hum. As such, La bohème is considered as a singers' opera. Recently, at a party with other opera goers in Washington DC, when I stated that I would soon see a new production in Rome, the question most often asked was: 'who will sing it?'
Is this the right question? Often we forget that in Turin in 1893, the opera's première was conducted by Arturo Toscanini and that Herbert von Karajan and Leonard Bernstein considered La bohème one of the most demanding, challenging and rewarding operas to conduct. The orchestral score is not principally a support to the singers as in many other operas that followed Verdi's melodrama (such as Ponchielli's La Gioconda and Rossi's Cleopatra), but it is a complex system involving at least fifteen main themes often intertwined in a variety of manners, following the Wagnerian 'revolution'. They are generally designed to create a situation, a mood and a milieu only with a few strokes. On 16 June 2011, the opening night of a series of ten performances, this was clear from the opera's start. The conductor of the series of performances was the American James Conlon, especially expert in twentieth century music; his baton was felt from the initial spirited, powerfully rhythmic theme which plunges the audience headlong into the middle of the action. This review is, of course, based on the 16 June performance.

A scene from Act II of Puccini's 'La bohème' at Teatro dell'Opera in Rome. Photo © 2011 Corrado Maria Falsini. Click on the image for higher resolution
In Conlon's hands, the initial theme is clearly the most important of the many others. Especially, of those characterizing the light-hearted bohemian atmosphere, which with their frequent recurrence establish one of the basic aspects of the work. This light-heartedness is then confronted by Rodolfo's dreamy tune and Mimi's response, later expressing their tender love for each other, particularly in their love song Che Gelida Manina. In the second act, the orchestral score is principally concerned with the activities of the crowd; it has been described as a rainbow of shimmering musical colors in a completely naturalistic musical idiom with short lyrical interludes and Musetta's waltz-song. Whilst other conductors rush through the act, Conlon emphasizes the shrill consecutive fifths through the orchestra; the harmonic idiom becomes bolder, yet subtler, than in Puccini's previous operas (eg the triads of the Café Momus theme that Stravinsky so much appreciated fifteen years later).

A scene from Act III of Puccini's 'La bohème' at Teatro dell'Opera in Rome. Photo © 2011 Corrado Maria Falsini. Click on the image for higher resolution
In Conlon's hands, Puccini's ability to conjure up atmosphere is nowhere shown to better advantage than in the third act. In sharp contrast to the colorful second act, the orchestra takes on the paleness of every-day life, from the hollow fifths at the beginning of the act to the inconsolable monotony of Rodolfo's description of Mimi's illness, to the soaring melody of the ecstasy of love which is tainted by sorrow from the pit while the suggestion of falling snowflakes conveyed by a succession of open fifths on flutes and harp over a cello line anticipates Debussy. In the final act, the theme of the previous three acts returns to accompany Mimi's reflection on her short life filled with great love, but also with poverty and illness. Conlon gives relevance to the somber theme to announce the opera's implacable end.

Hibla Gerzmava as Mimi in Puccini's 'La bohème' at Teatro dell'Opera in Rome. Photo © 2011 Corrado Maria Falsini. Click on the image for higher resolution
I may overstress the importance of La bohème's orchestral score because the opera is often entrusted to second rate conductors, not up to the required standards. But La bohème is also vocalism: it requires at least four main singers and a large array of good singers in short but no less difficult secondary roles.

Patrizia Ciofi as Musetta in Puccini's 'La bohème' at Teatro dell'Opera in Rome. Photo © 2011 Corrado Maria Falsini. Click on the image for higher resolution
The Teatro dell'Opera production has two casts. I listened to that of the opening night. Mimi was a comparatively unknown singer, the Georgian Hibla Gerzmava; she has a clear round voice and does not lack volume. She is a bit plump which does not help to interpret a poor young florist about to die of tuberculosis. However, her sweet face made up for this point. She has good phrasing and acute. In the duets (in particular in the first act), she overpowered her Rodolfo, Ramón Vargas. He is still one of the best lyric tenors around on the international scene, but after thirty years of career, age is catching up with his acute. He is skillful and was able to avoid the most difficult of them. Then, his timbre is still translucent and his phrasing, his legato and especially his 'mezza voce' are up to the highest levels. Both Gerzmava and Vargas had open stage applause; at the curtain calls Gerzmava had real accolades interrupted by a few 'boos' from the upper rows of the balcony, but it was not clear if the boos were addressed to her or to other aspects of the performance. Franco Vassallo was a vigorous, very manly, Marcello; Patricia Ciofi a spirited sexy Musetta. Vito Priante and Marco Spotti complete the foursome of the bohémiens. All the others were effective. In some of the other performances, the key four protagonists are scheduled to be Stefano Secco, Carmela Remigio, Luca Salsi and Ellie Dehn.

Ramón Vargas as Rodolfo and Hibla Gerzmava as Mimi in Puccini's 'La bohème' at Teatro dell'Opera in Rome. Photo © 2011 Corrado Maria Falsini. Click on the image for higher resolution
The staging needs a few comments. Originally, the Teatro dell'Opera had planned to propose Zeffirelli's fifty-two-year-old production, initially conceived for La Scala with Bernstein in the pit and then also sold to the Paris Opéra, Vienna State Opera and New York Metropolitan Opera, as well as rented to many other theatres and often shown in TV. The Zeffirelli production proved too costly at this time of financial stringency. Thus, the management and the artistic direction of the Teatro dell'Opera had a brilliant idea: to bring back a thirtyish-year-old production by Pier Luigi Samaritani, originally conceived for the Teatro Massimo Bellini of Catania but toured extensively in Italy and abroad and likely to have a new national and international run after this Rome revival.

A scene from Act IV of Puccini's 'La bohème' at Teatro dell'Opera in Rome. Photo © 2011 Corrado Maria Falsini. Click on the image for higher resolution
Of course, since Samaritani died in 1994, a young stage director Marco Gandini was called to work on the acting. New costumes were provided by Anna Biagiotti and the laboratory of the Teatro dell'Opera. In extreme synthesis, the Samaratini production is less spectacular but more moving than Zeffirelli's. Most likely the boos were organized by Zeffirelli's fans.
Copyright © 20 June 2011 Giuseppe Pennisi,
Rome, Italy

GIACOMO PUCCINI
LA BOHEME
TEATRO DELL'OPERA
ROME
ITALY
JAMES CONLON
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