La Bohème, Opera Australia live cinema relay, April 2012

Transferring the action from late nineteenth century Paris to early 1930s Berlin allowed director Gale Edwards some extra scope with Act II. The Café Momus has become a cabaret venue, replete with scantily dressed girls in stockings and corsets, including one topless, and hints of bisexuality. With a superb performance by Taryn Fiebig as a very glamorous Musetta, this was a lot of fun. She sang beautifully and her wonderful stage presence reminded me of Deborah Voigt.

Alcindoro with Musetta in Act II, all images Jeff Busby

Yet Ms. Fiebig was not the only one with panache, as Shane Lowrencev’s tall and very camp Schaunard made a great entrance in Act I at the same time as the two errand boys with provisions.  Mimi was charmingly portrayed by Takesha Meshé Kizart, and the painter Marcello was very strongly sung and acted by José Carbo. I liked the touches of paint on his clothes, and his genial disposition, allied with a firmness that Musetta could find very attractive, was ideal for the role. After all she doesn’t think much of the wealthy Alcindoro in Act II and apparently far prefers the impecunious artist.

Mimi and Rodolfo

The bohemians’ garret is a huge room with a very high ceiling, light entering from windows at the top, and plenty of room for clowning around in Acts I and IV. But in Act I it is supposed to be very cold, yet Rodolfo was in shirt-sleeves and Mimi wore an elegant crochet shawl that would not have kept her very warm. It’s also supposed to be rather dark, yet in the cinema screening I saw — which was not the live relay that will be broadcast on April 24 — the lighting was over-bright, rendering the key all too visible. And in the close-ups Ji-Min Park as Rodolfo was covered in perspiration, which made him look ill. This was particularly odd in Act IV when it’s Mimi who is dying, and I wondered why he was laughing at some points. Very strange.

All in all, however, this staging gives a fine insight into the opera, with the four bohemians interacting very well together, and David Parkin as Colline giving a fine account of his beloved coat. In the cinema I was in the sound was too dry and bright, and Rodolfo’s voice did not show enough depth, but the other voices came over more successfully and the orchestra under the direction of Shao-Chia Lü gave a fine rendering of Puccini’s score, bringing out the emotive power of the music.

The cinema screening dates for Opera Australia’s season are: La Bohème 24th April; Lakmé 29th May; Don Giovanni 26th June; La Traviata 31st July; Turandot 28th August; Die tote Stadt 27th November; and then in 2013 The Pearl Fishers 29th January; and Madama Butterfly 26th March. For further information, including a list of cinema venues in the UK, click here.

The Marriage of Figaro (Le Nozze di Figaro), Opera Australia, Sydney Opera House, July 2010

The revival of this co-production with the Welsh National Opera was very much a team effort, with excellent singing all round. Teddy Tahu Rhodes was particularly good as a strongly voiced yet surprisingly vulnerable Figaro. So often this character comes over as all too knowing, never seriously fearing for the loss of Susanna’s love, but here he showed natural human frailty on this extraordinarily crazy day — indeed an earlier title for this Mozart opera was The Crazy Day. It’s one of his three great collaborations with librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte, who knowing he could not get away with Figaro’s rant against the aristocracy in the original play by Beaumarchais, replaces it with a rant against the perfidy of women. So it’s only natural that Figaro feels himself vulnerable. And with the Susanna of Taryn Fiebig, who sang with a lovely tone and charming air of spontaneity, the main couple was perfect.

The Countess and Count, photo by Branco Gaica

Peter Coleman-Wright as the Count was excellent, both vocally and in his passionate yet superficial desire for Susanna, while still apparently very attracted to the Countess. This was a Count of some complexity, and Rachelle Durkin portrayed a statuesque Countess, singing strongly, though with a little more vibrato than I care for. Half a head taller than Susanna, she managed to decrease her height admirably when they changed clothes in Act IV, and I only wish the designer Dale Ferguson had given her a decent wig, rather than a modern frizz of cultivated wild abandon. This was probably all part of the deliberately anachronistic touches, such as the flash camera, and one or two other things inserted into an eighteenth century environment, but the hair was frightful.

Kanen Breen’s very camp portrayal of Don Basilio was witty, though almost over the top, but that was evidently intentional, and Warwick Fyfe as Dr. Bartolo, with Jacqueline Dark as Marcelina, were rather touching, though his wig made him look absurd. Clifford Plumpton was wonderful as the gardener, entirely believable and not the irascible drunkard he sometimes appears, and Claire Lyon as his daughter Barbarina was gorgeous. The role of Cherubino is always a difficult one — a young woman pretending to be a young man who at one point dresses as a girl — but Sian Pendry’s movements were too girlish, though the costume, which showed her hips all too clearly, didn’t help. And I did think that exhibiting testosterone by banging the ironing board was over the top, though that was presumably the idea of director Neil Armfield, or associate director Roger Press.

The Count begs forgiveness at the end, photo by Branco Gaica

The main thing is that Patrick Summers did a fine job with the orchestra, keeping in touch with the singers while moving things forward at a good pace and bringing out the light and shade in the music.

Performances continue until 23 October, with cast and conductor changes starting in September — for more details click here.