Puccini La Bohéme: How Robin Norton-Hale brough opera to pub

The classical music world is constantly facing the so called contemporary productions of various well-known operas. The Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre sent Gluck’s Orpheus to the September 11^th crisis, the opera company Bohemieciai let Tchaikovsky’s Onegin live in Soviet Russia’s communal flat while OperaUpClose brought Puccini’s Rudolf and Mimi to the English pub. 

19^th century’s France was transformed into the present days of England. The main character Rudolf writes for websites and lives with his friend painter Marcello (who actually looks like a rock star rather than an artist). Some other friends and a tough tracksuits wearing landlord enlighten the daily-life until both Rudolf and Marcello fall in love – Rudolf (tenor) with the shy redhead Mimi (soprano) and Marcello (baritone) with this casual rich man and Selfridges loving girl called Musetta (soprano). The charm of this production is the way that the audience is involved in the action. The Café Momus scene started unexpectedly when a bunch of people showed up during the ‘interval’ and casually moved around, had some drinks and offered fags (‘cheaper than at newsagents’). Only the piano sounds (yes there was the piano accompaniment) made the audience realise that it is time to stay in their seats for another scene. Norton-Hale’s production seems to offer some irony and comedy elements combined with unexpected scenes which try to bring new audiences to the opera. The only question is whether the opera needs to become more popular amongst the comedy nights/musicals’ lovers. 

As this Puccini’s work is part of the Italian opera’s realist (verismo) movement, the production of Norton-Hale made it as real as ever possible. 

Here is one of my favourite arias - Rudolf Che Gelida Manina performed by Luciano Pavarotti: