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Friday, February 11, 2005
Atlanta Opera’s ‘La Boheme’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Opera Review
The Atlanta Opera’s “La Boheme.”
Thursday at the Boisfeuillet Jones Atlanta Civic Center. (Show repeats Saturday at 7:30 pm and Sunday at 3 pm.) www.atlantaopera.org
The Atlanta Opera’s production of Puccini’s “La Boheme” doesn’t try to be stylish, provocative or even fresh — just consistent.
Maybe the company is still finding its groove under new general director Dennis Hanthorn? Ticket sales are again climbing, but perhaps the opera’s recently-calmed budget crisis continues to unsettle its artistic values?
Whatever the causes, this “Boheme” never aspires to be anything more than auto-pilot Puccini.
A morbid little romance, “Boheme’s” plot is supposed to be fool-proof entertainment. Act one, boy meets girl with a bad cough. Act two, the love couple goes public. Act three, they quarrel and reconcile. Act four, girl dies. Add a second romantic subplot and a couple of slapstick maneuvers and you’ve got the one of the most popular operas of the past century.
Peter Dean Beck’s sets (rented from Opera Carolina) and period costumes depict sooty 19th century Paris, where a quartet of artsy wannabes live and love in their attic apartment and drink at the neighborhood cafe.
On Thursday, Canadian soprano Sally Dibblee sang the doomed heroine Mimi with a warm, nuanced, full-sized voice. Tenor Mark Thomsen proved a charmless paramour as the poet Rodolfo. His voice was bland and half the strength of hers for their gloriously gushing love duet, “O soave fanciulla.”
If there are multiple ironies in the sick girl with steel lungs and her healthy, weakling lover, they remained unresolved right to the end.
In Musetta’s waltz, Elizabeth Carter sang evenly across her range, delivering full top notes but with a hint of vinegar in her tone.
Her lover, Marcello the painter, received deluxe casting in Frank Hernandez, his baritone booming and confident, with a manner equally outgoing. Some coarse phrasing added to his appeal: He was comfortable in his own voice and a bit of a ham.
Philosopher Colline gets a haunting song near the end, which bass-baritone Alfred Walker delivered with youthful fortitude. Of the artsy roommates, the musician Schaunard has the least memorable character, which suited Jeff Morrissey’s thin baritone. Steve Huff and John Davies made the most of their brief walk-on parts.
Bliss Hebert’s stage direction was alert, unobtrusive and sometimes funny. The strongest component came from Walter Huff’s chorus, delivering warmth, precision and gusto whenever called upon. It’s likely that Atlanta boasts one of the strongest operatic choruses in America. Is this a surprise?
One serious quibble concerned conductor Ward Holmquist, artistic director of the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, who made his Atlanta Opera debut Thursday. With little dramatic flair, he left Puccini’s intricate scene painting under-explored. When the boys burn paper to keep warm in act one, for example, Puccini’s music suggests flickering flames. Holmquist let the fragile moment pass without notice.
Although he drew a broad, firm sound from the orchestra, the conductor tinkered at whim with the flow of the music; rather than heighten the drama, the lurches gave the singers and orchestra trouble. As a result, Dibblee and Carter, for their biggest arias, often didn’t sway with the same beat as the orchestra. Such stage-pit complications are likely — hopefully — to be resolved for subsequent performances.
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