Gŵyl a Taith Genedlaethol 2007 Festival and National Tour
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La Bohèmeby Puccini (sung in English) Director: Martin Lloyd-Evans accompanied by Mid Wales Opera Chamber Orchestra La Bohème received 31 performances ~ 13 in Wales and 18 in England |
CAST LIST
| Mimi | Camilla Roberts | ||
| Rebecca von Lipinski | |||
| Rodolfo | Michael Bracegirdle | ||
| Christopher Steele | |||
| Marcello | David Stout | ||
| Musetta | Alycia Fashae | ||
| Colline | Simon Wilding | ||
| Schaunard | James Cleverton | ||
| Benoit/ Alcindoro | Ian Jervis | ||
Director’s Notes
There are two sorts of poverty on view in La Bohème. First we meet the young men, educated and driven. Their poverty is very different from working class poverty. They have chosen to stick to their ideals rather than take a lesser path (with more pay), and their poor state is a celebration of their struggle as artists. Mimi, however, is the real thing. Her life has been full of struggle and trial. Poverty has been thrust upon her, it is not some lifestyle choice, however noble. Mimi is doubly attractive to them all because of the authenticity of her poverty. Where innocence and vision drive the men, Mimi strives to give some meaning to her life through hope. Her counterpart in the world of cruel poverty is Musetta, who has faced the same darkness and despair, and confronted it with the harsh practicality of prostitution.
So for a short time, then, we are in a world where hope and innocence reign. The first two acts of La Bohème are light-hearted romantic comedy, with only a couple of coughs to alarm the unprepared. The story, in its fragmentary way, jerks into a violently different mode in the third act when relationship problems and terminal illness raise their heads. The ebullience of the first act is re-visited briefly in the fourth, but when the ailing Mimi staggers in, we know that the men’s playfulness will never be the same again. In Mimi’s death we re-live that awful moment when vision and hope yield to “experience” and “wisdom”, and we grow up. Rudolfo’s cry is the cry of lost youth.
In our production (set in the Paris of the 1968 student riots) we have striven to capture this sense of “A La Recherche du Temps Perdu”. The emotional clarity of the piece has the quality of emotion remembered: its brightness and force a purified version of the original life-messed thing, in the same way that a photograph or family video offers a distilled and perfected version of the past. I would hope that this is neither morbid or prurient, but a fitting version of this extraordinary piece.
Martin Lloyd-Evans
La Bohème Reviews
“This is a well conceived, beautifully sung La Bohème that any audience would be delighted with.”
“The dramatic contrast between the first three acts and the intensely sad final scene was superb.”
“Pavarotti …… would have been thrilled at the freshness, ardour, enthusiasm and sheer professionalism of the youthful cast …”
La Bohème Photographs
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Act 1
Act 1
Act 1
Act 2
Act 2
