Puccini's LA BOHEME – 2013 production
Stage Director, Ruth Mariner; Musical Director, Joe Paxton; Producer, Jim Petts.
With new stage and musical directors, and a 15-piece orchestra, Kennet Opera returned to what's probably the world's favourite opera 16 years after first presenting it in Newbury's Corn Exchange.
From the programme:
- La Bohème is one of Puccini's most successful operas, loved by performers and audiences alike ever since its first performance in 1896 in Turin, where it was conducted by the young Arturo Toscanini… He has a talent for creating character motifs and using them to support the dramatic atmosphere.
- La Bohème is often softened and sentimentalised in its interpretation, yet it is the raw nerve that we wished to expose here.
- Underneath the characters' tribulations and their crises of attachment and separation lies a stark commentary on the social inequality of the time. Mimi and Musetta have little choice but to court unwanted men for their money.
Gallery
Photos of La Bohème .
Marcello, Musetta, Rodolfo and Mimi, final scene