La Bohème Preview

It wasn’t until I sat in on a rehearsal that the sheer power of opera struck me. Directly in the firing line of an aria, I suddenly realised that here was an art form that wasn’t ashamed of grand emotions, and desperate passions. The sort of romantic ideals that are so difficult to articulate and sustain within a culture dedicated to celebrity and disposability find their natural home in opera. I was converted.

Stewart Laing’s presence as director of Scottish Opera’s La Bohème, will doubtless encourage my infatuation. Laing, one of Glasgow’s most imaginative directors, saw something very modern in “The core story of two couples and their relationships. They go out with each other, split up, go out with other people, then get back together with each other again. At one point one of the couples agrees to go out with each other for a couple of months before they will split up again.”

The contemporary setting, then, is more than a gimmick. “I wanted to look at these relationships in a clean, uncluttered, modern way, and not get bogged down in a world of top hats, fingerless gloves and stoves with wonky pipes,” he explains. Mimi and Rodolfo have been moved to twenty-first century New York, and move in the art world of galleries and loft spaces.

The adaptability of the plot lies in the emotions that it explores: choreographer Ian Spink identifies this as part of the nature of opera. “It's still a great medium that can deal with weighty human matters: in this case, desire: for sucess, to be noticed, to be loved, for money. And death...These things will never go away... I'm sure we all know of someone who was young, vibrant and who died before their time.”

Both Spink and Laing identify the power of Puccini’s score. “The music dictates everything you do, even when you're fighting against it,” admits Laing, while Spink adds “The music-especially on the scale used in this opera- tends to consume all the performers. They often move and act as if under its spell.” What appears to be the most artificial aspect of opera is, in fact, the overpowering connection to the audience.

Theatre is often preoccupied with establishing a spurious realism- accuracy of characterisation, recognisable language- which is impossible to achieve. The fact of performance lends everything, at best, a hyper-realism. Opera’s frequent arias, which articulate the secrets of the heart that really aren’t that smart to mention over a pint, by-passes any senses of realism, allowing the performance to aim straight at the emotions. It might still pass as a tasteful night out, or a signifier of sophistication. Fortunately, the intensity might be able to slip past even my own guarded, cynical front.

Read the review for La Bohème.