United Kingdom Longborough Festival Opera [2] – Puccini, La bohème: Soloists, Longborough Festival Orchestra / Alice Farnham (conductor). Longborough, Cotswolds, 30.7.2024. (CP)
Production:
Director – Sarah Fahie
Designer – Sarah Beaton
Lighting designer – Colin Grenfell
Assistant Director – Mathilda du Tillieul McNicole
Chorus master – Erika Chalmers
Youth Chorus master – William Sharma
Youth Chorus team – Emma Campbell, Maria Jagusz, Jessica May
Cast:
Rodolfo – Jung Soo Yun
Mimì – Elin Pritchard
Marcello – Darwin Prakash
Musetta – Sofia Kirwan-Baez (Emerging Artist)
Schaunard – Edward Jowle (Emerging Artist)
Colline – Duncan Stenhouse (Emerging Artist)
Benoît / Alcindoro – Matthew Siveter (Emerging Artist)
Customs Sergeant – Sam Young (Emerging Artist)
Parpignol – Tobias Campos Santinaque (Emerging Artist)
Longborough Festival Opera’s remarkable season is drawing to a close, but it continues to promote its long-established Emerging Artist Programme together with the remarkably successful Longborough Youth Chorus in an intriguing production of Puccini’s Paris-based La bohème. Competition between the two composers, Puccini and Leoncavallo, aiming to launch their separate versions of the opera in the 1890’s show striking differences in dialogue with sharper dialogue in the Leoncavallo version; the Puccini version presents the more sympathetic and passionate depiction of bohemian life. Puccini’s approach to his music is more atmospheric; Alexandra Wilson the Oxford-based Puccini historian accurately describes the composer’s efforts as ‘Puccini knowing exactly the right strings to pull to stir an audience in 1896’.
Neither composer suggested the intrusions Director, Sarah Fahie and Designer, Sarah Beaton decided to adopt! Their fresh and different start, delivered in the form of a prelude without music, presented Mimì in the workshop which employed her, working alongside a number of seamstresses with a supervisor setting challenging targets difficult to achieve just before the Christmas break. This was not the only Fahie/Beaton trespass, they certainly put their own interpretation on things, more departures from the norm, later! Just as soon as the excellent orchestra begins the opening bars, the scene changes to the more familiar artist’s loft space where Marcello, a painter (baritone Darwin Prakash) and Rodolfo (tenor Jung Soo Yun) are hard at work painting and writing. Their loyalty to each other is an important theme in the opera with their lives artistically rich but cash poor.
Prakash makes an impressive Longborough debut; Jung Soo Yun makes a welcome return having sung the role of Riccardo Percy in LFO’s Anna Bolena in 2019. Conductor Alice Farnham is back with the outstanding Longborough Festival Orchestra after last year’s hugely enjoyable L’elisir d’amore. Several members of those string, wind and brass sections remain and once again supported her enthusiastically this year, most especially those fine brass players who played their hearts out in Wagner’s Ring earlier in the season (review here). Members of that brass section, Martin Knowles (tuba), Jon Holland, (trumpet) and Simon Baker (trombone) made an immediate impact, with Max Heaton’s percussion, driving the opening act which explores the tumultuous relationship between Marcello and Musetta (soprano Sofia Kirwen-Baez) – an Emerging Artist and one to watch – confirming that dependable loyalty between Rodolfo and Marcello. Henry Murger’s book Scènes de la vie de bohème, which is the basis for the opera, asserts Musetta loves Marcello because he is the only one who can make her suffer!
Burning Rodolfo’s scripts and failed attempts to pawn books leave the friends with no money and no food until Schaunard (bass-baritone Edward Jowle, an LFO Emerging Artist) comes to their rescue with some money, wine and food. These friends decide to celebrate at their regular haunt, the Café Momus; their plans are thwarted in the short term when their landlord (baritone Matthew Siveter) arrives to claim rent. Leaving Rodolfo behind, the friends set off for Café Momus. Mimì (soprano Elin Pritchard) brings to LFO experience of singing Musetta with English National Opera and Opera Holland Park and Mimì with Welsh National Opera. She manages to create a sense of urgency whilst singing with a radiant sweetness. She can act, too! Jung Soo Jung manages to find a mournful dignity as he assists Mimì to cope with faltering candles. Their relationship blossoms from this point as they join friends at Café Momus.
Christmas merriment brings the vast Longborough Youth Chorus to the stage to join the fun and games in the Latin Quarter. Their enthusiasm and lively interest in everything happening on the stage together with their beautiful costumes are a credit to those behind the youth project. Their singers and actors will, hopefully, remember these performances with much fondness. Musetta makes her first appearance demanding a new pair of shoes which her elderly protector is sent on a mission to obtain, leaving the several friends including Marcello, her former lover, to enjoy the festivities and Musetta’s elderly protector to pick up the bill!
With the chorus receiving plenty of applause when taking a bow at the end of the act, the action moved quickly to concerns for Mimì’s deteriorating health and her difficult relationship with Rodolfo. Simplicity of sets allows space for easy movement, providing the opportunity for the audience to concentrate on the frustrations and worries of the several male friends, Musetta and Mimì. Back in the attic, Rodolfo and Marcello try to forget their liaisons with Musetta and Mimì when their fortunes are lifted by Schaunard bringing food including herrings which do much to raise spirits! Sadly, Mimì’s illness will prove to be terminal despite the purchase of medicine by Marcello. Soon we see another Fahie/Beaton intervention – a freezing embrace between Rodolfo and Marcello – for no good reason. Their last intervention sees Mimì disappear from the stage as her friends mourn her death. Why?
The significant strengths of this excellent production are the very capable leads and the arrival of Emerging Artist, Sofia Kirwen-Baez, a name to look out for in the future. The last word must go to the orchestra; what an amazing year they have had!
Clive Peacock
Another great success for Longborough opera. It was a great evening with everyone singing and playing their hearts out in this very familiar and much-loved work . There were so many thing s to commend it, but here are a few which stood out for me: the voices of Mimi and Rodolfo, the vitality and management of the relatively large chorus and particularly the magnificent and passionate orchestral playing under the direction of Sarah Fahie.
Thank you all so much! Sally Thompson