Posted: Saturday, November 21, 2015 2:45 pm. – BY ROY PROCTOR Special correspondent
Talk about love at first glance! In Virginia Opera’s vocally resplendent take on Puccini’s “La Bohème,” now in the Carpenter Theatre at Richmond Center Stage, Mimi and Rodolfo meet when she shows up at his doorstep in the drafty Paris garret they share.She wants her candle relit, and he is happy to oblige.
Then starving writer Rodolfo and tubercular seamstress Mimi spend some time crawling around on the floor looking for Mimi’s suddenly lost key, their fingers touch and – wouldn’t you know it? – about 20 minutes into this four-act opera, they’re declaring their undying love.
A lot in “La Bohème” strains credulity, at least in my book, beginning with Rodolfo’s willingness to throw a manuscript into the stove for a few moments of warmth in a first act set on Christmas Eve.
So why has “La Bohème” stayed near the top of the operatic hit parade almost from the moment it premiered in Turin, Italy, in 1896?
Because Puccini’s often tuneful music soars, beginning with Rodolfo’s and Mimi’s autobiographical arias that blend into their love duet in Act 1. If love isn’t so easily achieved in life, then the music in “La Bohème” is seductive enough to make you think it should be.
Soprano Elaine Alvarez and tenor Jason Slayden make willing suspension of disbelief easy as Mimi and Rodolfo. They share an achingly romantic chemistry early on. Their pure and effortless voices wash over the Carpenter Theatre again and again.
Alvarez made her mark as Mimi at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and she has continued to make the role her own. Slayden is also a veteran in Puccini’s tenor roles, including Rodolfo elsewhere, and is to the Puccini manner born.
They’re the brightest – but hardly the only – stars in the production. Edward Parks, as the painter Marcello, Rodolfo’s garret-mate, and Zulimar Lopez-Hernandez, as his spitfire girlfriend, Musetta, are easily up to their vocal and acting tasks and provide a nice foil for Rodolfo and Mimi.
Bass-baritone Jake Gardner also stands out when he brings his acting chops to bear on creating distinctive characters in the garret’s morally questionable landlord in Act 1 and Musetta’s sugar daddy in Act 2.
Director Kyle Lang has reset “La Bohème” in the gathering storm clouds of World War II, but this seems more a matter of wardrobe choices than anything else. His production is still basically the opera Puccini set in the 1830s.
Lang is sensitive to the emotional fabric of “La Bohème” in his staging of the this opera’s more intimate moments, but seems at a loss to articulate the thundering herd – large adult and children’s choruses in addition to the leads – in the Act 2 café setting.
Scenic designer Erhard Rom’s garret and snowy exterior settings serve the production nicely and are beautifully lit by Driscoll Otto, but Rom’s café setting doesn’t provide the number of elevations required for such a huge cast. Lang doesn’t help matters, either, in failing to group the singers to make the soloists stand out.
Indeed, it’s often hard to determine who’s singing in Act 2. Conductor Adam Turner is never at a loss as he pulls assured sounds from his large pit orchestra culled from the ranks of Norfolk’s Virginia Symphony.