This is a production which knowingly demurs from the chocolate-box temptations of the famous tear-jerker and brings some realism and plenty of humour to La Boheme. This first revival of Jonathan Miller’s production brings Puccini’s heart-twisting tragedy to drab, depression-era Paris: the muted tones of the set are matched by costumes in dull browns and greys and even the snow-fall is understated. It feels like an apt production for our recession-hit times. But there is a downside to this restraint of sentiment: when Mimi finally expires, the tears somehow fail to fall, selling the audience a bit short on one of opera’s most decisive coups des graces.
      That said, there is a lot to recommend this production. Isabella Bywater’s revolving set is brilliant in its simplicity and invention. The boys’ apartment is the upper part of a split level block with Mimi’s pad on the floor below. This spins round and opens up to become Café Momus, and with the orchestra and chorus in full flood this is an exciting scene-setting transformation which effectively transports us to the bustling pre-Christmas atmosphere of the Rive Gauche. Mairead Buike as Musetta delivers the most exciting part of this opera with verve and aplomb; her wealthy suitor shaking his jowls in disbelief as she struts round the café amusing and scandalising with her coquettish parade.
       Jonathan Miller has been working with a new translation of the libretto by Amanda Holden. It is sharp, funny and modern and the obvious enjoyment the principles have with such lines as, “I goosed her, then I seduced her,” give their poverty a student-ish lightness, as if they are slumming it for fun. After a slightly tight-throated start to the first act, the boys turn out bravura performances – particularly Gwyn Hughes Jones, whose Rodolfo fills the stage gloriously. His powerful voice is tender and occasionally vulnerable, although the humour of the libretto and own distinctly well-covered stature seem to give the lie to his supposedly miserable prospects.
      Perhaps the nicest surprise to this revival is the stage debut of Elizabeth Llewellyn. Having been nurtured by the ENO through their Opera Works training programme, last year she won the inaugural Voice of Black Opera Competition and seems to promise a rich return on the ENO’s investment. Her smooth, warm and resonant soprano perfectly matches Gwyn Hughes Jones for power and her clear and expressive diction brought light and vigour to the libretto. She has a sumptuous quality in her lower register which is very exciting. A confident and sprightly handling of the orchestra by American conductor Stephen Lord brought a vivid counterpoint to the sullen hues on stage and, in the opera’s most mesmeric moment, it was the simplest thing to believe that Llewellyn’s Mimi could fall for Hughes Jones’s Rodolfo in exactly eight minutes flat. A pity then that her death was not milked a little more by the guarded Miller so that we could leave with the lump in our throat which is such a part of the point of this glorious work.
Charlie Taylor