Mimi (Lauren Michelle) and Marcello (Edward Parks) in Boston Lyric Opera’s La Boheme. Olivia Moon photograph
La Bohème
Boston
Boston Lyric Opera
9/23/22
Director Yuval Sharon’s “backwards Bohème” works splendidly. By performing the four acts of Puccini’s La Bohème in reverse order, Sharon opened the Boston Lyric Opera’s 2022–023 season on Friday, Sept. 23 at the Emerson Colonial Theatre with a radical appraisal of a century-old favorite. Sharon’s re-staging premiered at Detroit Opera, where he is artistic director, and subsequently ran at the Spoleto Festival USA, both in spring 2022.
Mimi’s death at the outset of Bohème, rather than after an opera-long illness, allows for a transformative look at her romance with Rodolfo. Sharon’s approach eliminates the unavoidable doom, where Mimi’s illness shadows all the action. It gives the audience a true-love story—this Bohème ends with not with Mimi dead on a couch, but with her and Rodolfo singing unison “Amor,” fading away arm-in-arm into the wings.
It also creates a contemporary, cinematic experience. The reverse engineering and revisions (this Bohème runs less than two hours) create flashbacks, mash-ups and jump-cuts—a meta performance. It gives the expected and inevitable a feeling of uncertainty. Verismo, treated ironically, but not mocked.
Soprano Lauren Michelle sang Mimi, a surprisingly athletic, confident Mimi who gets her dying out of the way and then explores her romance. Her demise is less ponderous, more believable, and far less central to the action.
Tenor Jesus Garcia (Rodolfo), baritone Edward Parks (Marcello), and soprano Chelsea Basler (Musetta) were joined by a skilled supporting cast. Bass William Guanbo Su (Colline) and baritone Benjamin Taylor (Schaunard) joyfully befriend the down-on-their-luck artists to create a posse of friends who were full of life. Their relationships stood at the center, not just as a side-show to Mimi’s demise.
The large instrumental ensemble—at least 60 strong, conducted by David Angus—sat on the orchestra floor, right where the board members and shiny patrons usually sit, and not in a pit. The placement made the instrumental score a more integral part of the performance. The singers sang organically with the instruments, not over them, and the audience could easily see (and hear) the collaboration.
Basler’s Musetta gets the most robust transformation, her introduction first as a loving friend and girlfriend, only later breaking out a party-girl side. Her second act (third here) “Quando m’en yo” (When I go along) sounded like a self-actualized description, not a defiant anthem. The role sat perfectly in Basler’s instrument—well-rounded, facile and assertive.
Some of the action, especially in the opening act, would have included bewildering transitions—if the expectation of re-experiencing something you already know had not been established. Cuts to the opera—heavily rendered in acts two and three (three and two in Sharon’s iteration)—blended acceptably with the reversed order. Sharon has posited a sense of uncertainty from the outset, and cuts, inexplicable actions, and misplaced references all felt like part of that design.
Set designer John Conklin used a circular stage, which rotates and tilts. The mechanics were noticeably noisy at times, but generally provided a singer-friendly platform.
The sets, costumes (Jessica Jahn) and lighting were unexpectedly simple (and traditional). John Torres’s lighting enhanced the visuals cleverly, with a shifting backdrop that referenced Marcello’s haphazardly unfinished canvases.
The meta experience not only transforms this narrative, it comments on how audiences can encounter Bohème. Notable works can withstand radical approaches: the audience anticipates so much, that confusing those expectations fosters introspection rather than misunderstanding.
Investigating that aspect more thoroughly, and helping the audience along the way, Sharon invents a narrator, the Wanderer (Marshall Hughes). At a half-dozen moments the Wanderer stops the action and interrogates the character’s possibilities (“What if Mimi doesn’t turn around?”). The Wanderer’s addition was another insightful change, easing along any inconsistencies in the flow.
Sharon creates a memorable revisitation of an opera whose music alone brings repeated enjoyment. A concise and fascinating discomposure of a well-known narrative, this Bohème reverses time, re-energizing its reception. —Keith Powers