Puccini: La Boheme (Live from the Met)

This is a lavish productuion worthy of The Met. Both Angela Georghiu and Ramon Vargas perform extremely well. The cafe scene especially was highly entertaining. Musetta gave of her best. The friends sang amusingly and playfully. Do not hesitate - you will enjoy.

For my money, the star of this performance is Ramon Vargas. He can act with the kind of restraint Hamlet rightly recommends for all times to any players, and he is in glorious voice throughout. Angela Gheorghiu possesses an indisputably gorgeous voice, and her employment of middle and high registers here is beyond criticism. She seems, though, to have developed a mannerism, a gummy holding on to vowels in the final syllables of low notes at the end of phrases which are unnecessarily ugly rather than dramatic. Also, she tends to annoyingly overact. Her Mimi has more characterization than most, it's true, and her aggressiveness in going after her chubby Rodolfo, rather than portraying the usual passive-aggressive consumptive heroine is not the problem. What is problematic is her combining of disparates. At her entrance, she's already half dead. After a sip of wine, she's Sieglinde stumbled into Paris. The conception, along with the silent-movie emoting, is sadly contradictory. She deserved a better stage director.

The conducting of this performance seems to my ears excessively slow, with the consequence that famous moments lack any memorableness. Like a bandmaster, the conductor bows to his singers rather than to Puccini's genius.

The rest of the cast is adequate, but hardly representative of the Met casting from strength. All in all, a good performance, but hardly a great or memorable one.

I believe I own a copy of every commercial CD recording of "La Boheme," as well as several DVDs of live performances and this DVD is BY FAR my favorite. I even saw the Zeffirelli production at the Met live with Gheorghiu and Alagna the afternoon after they got married, but even that did not move me as this did. A performance that, after all this time and exposure to the opera, can leave me in tears is a rarity, and I was sobbing at the end of this video.

Every one of the six principals is magnificent, singing and acting gloriously. At first, I was concerned that the extremely expansive tempi Maestro Luisotti employs would enervate the production. But, while the tempo for "Mi chiamano Mimi," combined with the close-ups in HD of Angela Gheorghiu performing in the gigantic Metropolitan Opera House, does elicit some silent movie actress-like facial expressions and gestures from her, on the whole, these tempi allow each of the singers to bring a greater variety of coloration to their tones than one usually hears, which in turn only enhances the dramatic impact. For example, I usually find "O Mimi tu piu non torni" to be a pretty, but somewhat annoying, diversion before the drama of the final act commences. BUt under Maestro Luisotti and with the beautiful and sensitive singing of Ramon Vargas and Ludovic Tezier, it becomes one of the most moving moments of the opera. In fact, I was in tears throughout the final act. Every characters emotions were heartfelt and never schmaltzy or overheated.

Also with respect to coloration, Ms. Gheorghiu produced some of the darkest tones I have ever heard in "Donde lieta usci." While others have made this a pretty and nostalgic aria, Ms. Gheorghiu with subtlety rips out your heart just as Mimi's has been torn from her.

As I said, I saw this production with Ms. Gheorghiu and her brand new husband in the lead roles, but I didn't feel the love between Mimi and Rodolfo as I felt it between her and Mr Vargas. His performance matched hers in its unique combination of subtlety and intensity. And to top it all off, they both sang with some of the most beautiful lines and tones ever brought to this music.

For newcomers and aficionados alike, this DVD is an ESSENTIAL component of any opera lovers collection.