LA BOHÈME
Direction musicale: Gustavo Dudamel
Mise en scène: Claus Guth.
La Bohème at Christmas should be a sure-fire winner, impossible to muck up. Sublime music, lots of snow and children, achingly beautiful arias and a heart-rending finale.
German director Claus Guth has all the sensitivity of a Nazi storm trooper. Even aged 63 3/4 I am excited when the curtain goes up. On Tuesday evening I wondered simultaneously if I’d come to the wrong place or whether to walk out. I pinched myself and realised that I really was at La Bohème at the Opéra National de Paris. The set was a spaceship with technical problems – spoiler: it crash lands in Act Three.
Poor old Claus must have been mighty upset. The singers told him that they couldn’t sing in their space suit helmets. Actually I have seen worse interpretations of operas but this is in my top three. It is incredible that an internationally acclaimed opera company allows such an awful interpretation of a super opera to be performed so crassly. It is insane.
Now for the good news. The orchestra and singing were spot on. I just felt sorry for them being dumped in such a super-stupid production. The ENO did a dud Bohème a few years ago but they didn’t get it as bad as this one. I kept my eyes closed and salvaged something from the evening. I hope for better tomorrow (Wednesday) evening.
Meanwhile I’d planned a perfect day yesterday; the sort of thing I’d include in My Perfect Weekend in the WeekendFT. I walked along the Boulevard St Germain and then down the Rue du Bac to the Musée d’Orsay. My plan was to see Cubist pictures by Picasso, Braque, Gris, Léger, Metzinger, Gleizes, Delaunay, Léger – you get the idea. Then to walk a short way along the Quai Voltaire to the Restaurant Voltaire to meet Robert for lunch. I first went there in the 1970s when I was a sugar broker and it has become a favourite destination restaurant.
So that was the dream. The reality? It was a damp morning and I had to skip puddles while the eaves dripped on my bald patch. The queue outside the Musée d’Orsay was so long that I would have been soaked and missed lunch. Then the Voltaire – it is delicious plain cooking – jellied eggs, black pudding – but the prices … starters are around 20 euros and mains 80 euros. I hardened my heart and we had lunch elsewhere.
Dear Christopher – judging by your description and the trailer, the Paris production of La Boheme looks dire – but not as dire as a production of Fidelio that Camilla and I were unfortunate enough to see in Nuremberg about 15 years ago – I particularly recall that at regular 15 minute intervals throughout the opera a man in a white medical coat entered stage right carrying plastic bag oozing blood and walked silently across the stage to place the bag in a refrigerator positioned in the corner stage right. Ludo de Walden
If you haven’t been, Museė Jaquemart André on Bvld. Haussmann is well worth a visit. They do a good lunch too. http://www.musee-jacquemart-andre.com/en/home
Herr Guth clearly belongs to that cadre of directors who don’t like music, or at least the music that they are asked to present. They therefore see their role as providing alternative entertainment rather than enhancing the music. You may recall a Rossini directed by Dario Fo which we both saw in Pesaro. He had a giant swing crossing the stage back and forth during all the best arias; totally distracting which I am sure he meant it to be. They want you to recall having seen the Guth production of an opera you cannot recall rather than a superb Boheme with a director you cannot recall.
Do you remember the flame throwers juggling in front of Juan Diego Flórez during his big number? There’s another stunt a director can pull; putting the singers out of sight of the audience. I’ve seen this done twice at Covent Garden; Queen of Spades and Tristan. That’s a good reason for stopping subsidising opera.