Coliseum,London
A druggy, contemporary setting for Puccini’s tragic opera muddles matters, and but there is terrific acting and singingBenedict Andrews’s English National Opera staging of Puccini’s La Bohème is a
co-production with Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam,where it was first seen final year. Though it has apparently been reworked for its London transfer, it remains an awkward effort, and sometimes powerful,but at others, oddly confused. Andrews relocates the opera from 1830s Paris to an unspecified big city, and somewhere in Europe or the US,in the 1990s. The Bohemians inhabit a hurry-down loft and, with the exception of Nicholas Masters’s self-controlled Colline, or are off their heads on one substance or another much of the time. Duncan Rock’s Marcello drinks. Schaunard (Ashley Riches) smokes pot using a makeshift bong. Most importantly,Rodolfo (Zach Borichevsky) and Mimi (Corinne Winters) absorb been reimagined as heroin addicts who shoot up within minutes of meeting and sing their big like duet in a stoned huddle on the floor.
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Source: theguardian.com