Today’s production of La Boheme will begin with the sad ending and end with the hopeful beginning. Wrap your head around that for a minute. It’s La Boheme, in reverse!
The intent from director Yuval Sharon is for the audience to experience La Boheme thru the clarity of hindsight, to appreciate the small moments and small wins of the characters while they make choices about their future. He beautifully quotes Kierkegaard in the playbill that “life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forward.” It is a wonder of art that artists can have the freedom to explore alternate views of reality and play with structure. The intent succeeds. I do feel the small moments of the opera keenly, like Rodolfo’s jealousy. However…
Artist intent be damned. I lost my Opera virginity with Puccini. La Boheme for Opera fans is as sacred as the holy grail, the queens slippers, or Elvis’ jacket. It’s a bodacious provocation to tamper with it. A provocation that raises many questions, some uncomfortable and challenging:
Should censors re-write the past? What is post-post modernism and is this an example of it? What’s the line between plagiarism and appropriation? Has culture become too sensitive for a sad ending? Is art for the artist or audience? Who does Sharon think he is to mess with my Puccini!?
I feel really provoked and want to put on my critic shoes and dive into the many questions, but my mission statement is to celebrate Opera. To document what’s incredible and beautiful about what I see and hear not to criticize. Can there be room in the repertoire for a backwards Boheme?
A DJ on the radio recently regarded the composer John Williams. He said, I don’t think people should criticize John Williams for “borrowing” from earlier composers, but instead should rather just celebrate his great taste in music. This director Yuval Sharon has great taste. But can I, opera fan, accept re-structuring La Boheme? I mean how would the religious world react if someone re-wrote the Bible or Quran?
For me it is all leading to the one truly important question raised by this production. What is the function of art? It is here that I can begin to soften my position. I think it is the function of art to raise questions in the mind of the viewer. Art is the antidote of dogma! Nothing is sacred in art. The Bible or Quran might be considered fixed and unalterable documents; but in art, nothing is fixed. Meaning is fluid. Meaning from art changes with time and an individuals experience. For every answer a work of art gives, it proposes another thousand and one questions in return. La Boheme like the Mona Lisa is fair game for an artist with an idea. Audiences and critics (and me) should embrace artists who push the boundaries of taste, thus push outward the boundaries of experience and possibility.
There is fresh air in new horizons for them willing to explore.
Puccini for an hour and a half is always worthwhile forwards or backwards. I enjoyed the performance immensely, and more than that, it made me reconsider my own preconceptions and tastes all while enjoying some gorgeous Puccini melody.
The singing filled the space of the Academy and I left wishing I had more time with these characters and these voices. I’m a spoiled Opera fan living between Philadelphia and New York that I expect as a starting point strong orchestra, players, and choir. What a thing to take for granted!
I’d like to write more but I’m eager to blow the dust off of some old Puccini vinyl, rotate them backwards, and listen for allegiances to satan or Paul not wearing shoes.
*A thread through my writing has been exploring how does contemporary opera contend with it’s past. If you want to go a little bit deeper into this conversation I can suggest a wonderful book I’m reading by Mathew Aucoin.
So What’s La Boheme all about? La Boheme is a love story among a group of artist friends in Paris at the end of the 19th century. This production tells the story in a reverse sequence told in four parts beginning with the end of the opera and going back to the beginning: Death, Barriere, Momus, Love.
Notes on the production:
Composer…………………… Giacomo Puccini
Libretto………………………. Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa
Re-arranged by…………….. Yuval Sharon
Conductor…………………… Corrado Rovaris
Rodolfo………………………. Joshua Blue
Mimi………………………….. Kara Goodrich
Marcella……………………… Troy Cook
Musetta……………………… Melissa Joseph
Schaunard…………………… Benjamin Taylor
Colline………………………… Adam Lau
The Wanderer………………… Anthony Martinez-Briggs
Alcindoro……………………… Frank Mitchell
Parpignol……………………… Matteo Adams
Customs-House Officer…….. Michael Miller
Sergeant……………………… Matthew Maisano
Prune Man…………………… A. Edward Maddison
Child Soloist…………………. Liam A. New Kirk
Opera Philadelphia
April 30, 2023