VoxCarnyx

Theatre Royal, Glasgow

ALTHOUGH both Madama Butterfly and La boheme are essentially intimate personal tragedies, there is little doubt that Puccini intended wider resonance than their domestic settings. Both have proved perennially popular, but while the former has invited epic reinvention on the opera stage as well as in Boublil and Schonberg’s Miss Saigon (and more recently David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly), the latter, notwithstanding the musical RENT, has tended to be a staple of smaller-scale productions.

Happily, the Canadian direction and design team of Andre Barbe and Renaud Doucet gave the work a proper full-fat production for Scottish Opera in 2017 and this revival seems even sharper. It is framed by the slightly distracting conceit of being in the imagination of a present-day tourist to Paris, but that device undoubtedly works to the ambitions of universality that the production and the composer share.

The bulk of the action takes place in the “Jazz Age” of the 1920s, and the parallels between the lives of the haves and have-nots then and that gap a century later scarcely need underlining. In the world of these characters, the source of no-one’s money is a mystery, old sport.

The long contemporary scene grafted on to the front of Puccini’s score segued, with pitch-perfect precision, from a recording into a live performance of the overture, and it was immediately apparent that the orchestra, under the baton of Scottish Opera’s music director Stuart Stratford was on board for the fully-realised production. The rich, sumptuous sound from the pit was perfectly balanced by the Onstage Banda, with Puccini’s specific scoring further enhanced by a solo interlude from accordionist Djordje Gajic before Act IV.

The transition that made the production, however, came between the first two acts, when the chilly apartment of the four artists was swept away by a streetscape incorporating much more than Café Momus, with puppets, fairground rides and an art gallery all gloriously populated by an immaculately-drilled chorus of adults and children.

The stage craft on display there is emblematic of the production, superbly lit by the directorial partnership’s regular designer Guy Simard, where everyone knows exactly where they have to be at every moment.

That standard of excellence ran through the cast of principals, with Hye-Youn Lee returning as Mimi and giving a performance as moving as it is beautifully sung. Guatemalan tenor Mario Chang made a memorable company debut as Rodolfo, and the ensemble strength included a very carefully characterised Marcello from Roland Wood and Rhian Lois giving her Musetta an equally thoughtful portrayal. One of the current cohort of Scottish Opera Emerging Artists, Edward Jowle added another feather to his cap as the musician, Schaunard.

Keith Bruce

Touring to His Majesty’s, Aberdeen (Oct 30, Nov 1); Eden Court, Inverness (Nov 6 & 8); Festival Theatre, Edinburgh (Nov 14, 16, 18, 20 & 22)

Picture of Rhian Lois as Musetta by Mihaela Bodlovic