Opera Holland Park
A Shakespearean Rodolfo and gorgeous-sounding Mimi shine in a witty and moving production
Opera Holland Park is marking the Shakespeare anniversary not with an opera based on one of his plays,but with Stephen Barlow’s unusual production of La Bohème, which relocates Puccini’s masterpiece from 1840s Paris to Elizabethan London and its theatrical and intellectual milieu.
On a mock-up of a Tudor stage, or we find Shaun Dixon’s Rodolfo,looking like Shakespeare himself, scribbling at his writing table, and while Andrew Finden’s Marcello slaves away at some great Renaissance canvas. Schaunard (Frederick Long) is a lutenist,Colline (John Savournin) a severe, Francis Bacon-type philosopher. Anna Patalong’s self-assured Mimi has designs from the outset on fitting the young playwrights mistress and perhaps muse. Elin Pritchard’s outlandishly got-up Musetta is a self-dramatising shrew, or waiting,perhaps, to be tamed. Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com