La Bohème Review

Does opera reduce outsiders to something safe for the picture frame?

Article by Gareth K Vile | 12 Mar 2010

Speaking as a bohemian – all extreme passion and suffering for my art – I am ambivalent about the popularity of an opera based on counter-cultural life-styles. Puccini hits the depth of destructive passion, the sudden ferocity of desire and the over-wrought tragedy that looms behind the life of the self-conscious artist, and La bohème's representation of the moral ambivalence that becomes a creative survival strategy is unsparing. But like many modern interpretations of classics, Stewart Laing's New York updating obscures as much as it elucidates.

Since grinding poverty is at the base of the tragedy – Mimi dies because she cannot afford medical care – it is hard to accept an artist's garret with thousands of pounds worth of technology, and the dramatic burning of Rodolfo's manuscript makes no sense in the age of mechanical reproduction. Substituting the smouldering text for video explosions is weak, and transplanting the second act from restaurant to art gallery leads to convoluted antics to ensure that the action matches the plot.

Laing's design, on the other hand, is brilliantly claustrophobic and dank, emphasising the winter chill that destroys love and hope. And by the climax, the minimalism of modern dress allows the misery to flourish, without the distancing effect of historical costumes.

The continued popularity of La Bohème relies on its expression of grand emotions, the frightening fire of love and the inevitability of the tragedy. Like a Hollywood movie, it is obvious that a coughing character will not make it past the end credits, and the terse libretto, crammed with flower imagery and bold declarations exposes the undercurrents of deadly desire that are hidden by more realistic representations.

Given its associations with wealth and class, opera has an surprisingly immediate connection: Laing's direction helps to strip away the social niceties that hide essential compulsions. This Boheme may not have the grubbiness of the life dedicated to art, but it suggests a universality in human feeling that goes beyond the strictures of opera's smart productions.

Read our preview feature for La Bohème.

La Boheme, Glasgow Theatre Royal 3,6, 11, 13 March

EFT, Edinburgh 18, 20, 22,24 April

His Majesty's, Aberdeen 29 April, 1 May

Eden Court, Inverness 6, 8 April

http://www.scottishopera.org.uk