[Met Performance] CID:267020



La Bohème
Metropolitan Opera House, Thu, December 24, 1981




La Bohème (825)
Giacomo Puccini | Luigi Illica/Giuseppe Giacosa
Mimì
Teresa Stratas

Rodolfo
Ermanno Mauro

Musetta
Renata Scotto

Marcello
Richard Stilwell

Schaunard
Mario Sereni

Colline
James Morris

Alcindoro/Benoit
Italo Tajo

Parpignol
Dale Caldwell

Sergeant
Glenn Bater

Officer
James Brewer


Conductor
James Levine







Review 1:

George Movshon in Musical America
‘La Bohème’

Anybody incautious enough to knock Puccini's La Bohème in my presence rates, at the very least, a lifted eyebrow or two and a short string of searching questions: Have you never been young ... or broke ... or in love? Or all three combined? How is it then possible for you to savage the one opera of all operas that reflects these conditions? Nothing else in the repertory catches and holds these agonies and ecstasies as does the music-drama of Mimi and Rodolfo, Marcella and Musetta, and the rooftops of Paris. And anybody who has passed through this vale of despair and happiness — as most of us have done — is the person to whom Murger and Puccini speak in “La Bohème,” whatever academics may say about Puccini's "marijuana" and his "cheap tricks." How is it possible not to have to fight back the tears, at least during the snow scene, if nowhere else in the opera?


The Metropolitan Opera has a new production of “La Bohème,” first shown on December 15 (and reviewed by me two weeks later). Before the current premiere the opera had been done 560 times in the house, a record exceeded here only by “Aida.” Direction and design were entrusted to Franco Zeffirelli, whose affinity for “Bohème” was convincingly established at the Scala in 1963 with a production (sung by Freni and Gianni Raimondi, conducted by Karajan) which is still considered by many to be simply the most beautiful staging of any opera in this era.


The new Met production has many beauties but it is not quite in the same league as "Zeffirelli Mark I." The basic style, then as now, is naturalistic; and that means we have the attic scene (used in both the [first] and the closing acts) located on the rooftops of Paris and the garret reduced to a credible dimension: in many other productions it occupies the entire stage and suggests that this particular group of Bohemians has a slum the size of the Elysée palace. Zeffirelli also reminds us that whereas the penthouse may be desirable housing for the rich in some American cities, in other continents it is the poor people who live at the rooftops, broiling in the hot weather and shivering in the cold. But because this particular attic is so realistically located among the roof slates, we pay a cost: we are psychologically removed from the action, held at a distance from the characters. There has been some exchange in print between the Met and the critics on this point, with the Met stating firmly that Mimi and the conductor are no further apart in this production than in the past; but the barrier is psychological rather than topographical, and it is there. Act III is gravely beautiful, as it should be, with the snowfall resuming atmospherically with the start of "D'onde lieta usci." It is hard for a producer/ designer worth the name — and Zeffirelli is one of the supreme masters — not to have a triumph in Act III.


But Act II is the big blockbuster scene eighteen minutes of the most expensive spectacle seen at the Met for a very long time. The curtain rises upon a busy Christmas Eve crowd in a square on the Latin Quarter; it ends with a military band passing through the crowd. In between, the interior of the Cafe Momus is revealed at the lower level. There is every kind of hawker, gawker, and busker to be seen, a total on-stage population (so I'm told) of 280. It certainly makes an exhilarating effect.


It is the sort of effect that leads to arguments in lobbies and bars, with questions asked about how opera money should be spent. In theory it is easy to agree with those who favor the imposition of a sumptuary law; but there is an undeniable thrill when the curtain goes up on such a piece of extravagance, all done at 1981 prices. They will soon have to scale it down some, so try to see this Bohème while it is still in the unminiaturized state.


On to the music, and not a moment too soon. The performance I attended featured Ermanno Mauro (rather than Jose Carreras) in the role of Rodolfo. Mauro was just fine at the climaxes and in the rough-house scenes with his chums, but there was a great want of tenderness in his scenes with Mimi. It is a fine, bold voice but, despite the Italianate sobbing, not to be believed in "Che gelida manina" and the opera's closing moments. (Carreras, heard during a broadcast, sounded a much greater and more likely lover, though the voice certainly showed strain at the start.


Richard Stilwell cut an admirable figure as Marcello and sang with clarity and command. James Morris, made up to resemble, don't ask me why, Rasputin, sang Colline's overcoat song with fine sonority. Mario Sereni was an adequate Schaunard and Italo Tajo played the landlord and the sugardaddy both with good effect.


The prime artistic triumph of the production belongs to Teresa Stratas, a singing actress of such versatility and caliber as to warrant comparison with Jon Vickers: she is arguably as supreme in her repertory as he stands in his formidable range of roles. Miss Stratas sings everything from Despina to Lulu by way of Desdemona and Jenny. To each assumption she brings something utterly individual and revealingly appropriate. The voice is by no means an especially beautiful one though it has considerable range and volume, but the skill with which it is used is unique. So it was with her Mimi, a deeply touching, musically and dramatically apt interpretation.


It would have been agreeable to be able to say something equally positive about Renata Scotto's portrayal of Musetta but that cannot be. This artist, who has given us so many wonderful performances in the past, seems to be in distress this season with the heavier range of roles she is now singing. But Musetta is not new to her repertory, and that makes it all the more difficult to ignore rankly bad singing and meretricious acting. Women did not in the Eighteen-forties (and they do not now) in public pull up their skirts to the navel — least of all do prostitutes do that. Miss Scotto flounced and flourished with a fine disregard for everything else on stage: she could not even manage to keep still during Mimi's death scene. Only the most hallowed singing could begin to excuse such excesses, certainly not the scooping and flatting we heard this time.


James Levine has given us countless reasons to be grateful for his presence in the house. No conductor here has ever worked harder or more assiduously. In Mozart, Verdi, Wagner, he is a paragon; in Puccini, alas, no. The direction was, as always, keenly sensitive to both composer and singer — but the score did not breathe and cry as a lesser man (but one more closely attuned to Puccini) could have made it do.



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