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ASO’s complete ‘La Boheme’
OPERA REVIEW Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Thursday in Symphony Hall. Performance repeats Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. www.atlantasymphony.org, 404-733-5000.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
At the wrenching emotional crux of Puccini’s “La Boheme” — in the final minutes of Act 3 — the lovers Mimi and Rudolfo bicker and reconcile, then reveal to each other what might be everyone’s greatest fear: they don’t want to be alone.
It’s a ravishing few minutes of hope and pathos, although the orchestra has already confirmed that the worst scenario is inevitable, for we’ve already heard Mimi’s music run through with the icy shiver of death.
Here soprano Norah Amsellem, as the tubercular seamstress, sang exquisite pianissimos, throbbing with expression yet hushed to a whisper.
The scene was given a crystallized, hypnotizing, almost-perfect realization Thursday in Symphony Hall, as the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra opened its 63rd season with a complete performance of Puccini’s 1896 masterpiece.
Instead of the statements of artistic policy that typically greet each new season — a program headlined by a symphonic standard and spiced with ear-friendly contemporary music, for example — the ASO and music director Robert Spano are recording the complete “Boheme” this weekend in “live” performances for Telarc (with a closed-door patch session Sunday evening to fix mistakes).
The evening began with “The Star-Spangled Banner,” where the ASO chorus lined the aisles, sang with full brio and gave the non-choristers among us a chance to know what it’s like to blend our voices with theirs, one of many small pleasures of the evening. (Actually, the evening began with a video advertisement from one of the ASO’s sponsors, the insidious creep of commercialization into the concert hall.)
This “Boheme,” stage-directed by James Alexander, came with a few props (tables and chairs, a wood stove), the singers in evening dress and the orchestra on stage, larger and louder than you’d typically hear in an opera pit. The singers acted the melodrama at the front, which meant they were behind the conductor’s back. They could see him via TV monitors at their feet; he could not see them, which led to many tiny problems of coordination between soloist and orchestra.
Perhaps this explains why Act 1, most of which is deliriously gorgeous, lacked drama. Tenor Marcus Haddock, as Rudolfo the poet, sang with strong pipes and a sweet voice when soft and low. Up near the ceiling of his range, it got pinched and unpleasant.
Amsellem, for all her intermittent vocal beauty, also sounded rather shrill when she had to open up for long lines of sustained intensity, which was often. Beyond their Act 3 bliss, neither singer offered much depth of personality. They gave off more light than heat.
Charisma came from the opera’s “B” couple, Musetta and Marcello. Soprano Georgia Jarman is a catch. Aggressive and sexy in manner, she had a clear, agile voice and delivered Musetta’s famous waltz as the show-stopper it’s meant to be.
Baritone Fabio Capitanucci, as Marcello the painter, likewise had the complete package: a vibrant personality, a handsome voice, a theatrical way with the texts.
The two other bohemians — bass Denis Sedov as Colline and baritone Christopher Schaldenbrand as Schaunard — also performed with distinction. Kevin Glavin had a wonderfully goofy turn as the landlord demanding the rent.
In at least one way, this “Boheme” was a milestone performance. The ASO Chorus, with about 170 members, plus the Gwinnett Young Singers, sang the opening scene of Act 2 — a gaggle of street vendors, shoppers, soldiers, parents, children and more — with the choral discipline and seismic force they’d reserve for the “Hallelujah Chorus.” It was surely the loudest and best prepared “Boheme” chorus in the 111-year history of the opera.
Orchestrally, as everyone anticipated, the performance was a revelation. As the dirt-poor bohemians burn Rudolfo’s manuscript to keep warm, the flames flicker bright in the orchestra, then we hear the flames flicker out. Or the ghostly falling snow of Act 3. Or the instant of demented terror — a full orchestral scream — when the landlord knocks. Or the final stab of Mimi’s death.
Spano revealed every nuance of Puccini’s glittery, embroidered score — every bit of it amplified in our consciousness, a performance not soon forgotten.
Permalink | Comments (4) | Categories: Classical Music
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By Julian Fuerst
September 28, 2007 9:41 AM | Link to this
I could not agree more with this critic. It was a glorious evening and a hall mark among Atlanta Symphony concerts.
By Micah Fortson
September 28, 2007 11:15 AM | Link to this
I thought Georgia Jarman’s Musetta sparked the flame of passion within my heart.
By Peter Stelling
September 28, 2007 1:46 PM | Link to this
Kudos to the ASO for giving us such a unique season-opener this year. The recording will undoubtedly be historic, and I am so glad this event will be preserved for our future enjoyment and for posterity.
Cannot agree more about the Musetta of Georgia Jarman…the most genuinely seductive Musetta I have seen on any stage. Too bad the screens missed the translation of Marcello’s wonderful line when she begins “Musetta’s Waltz”: He looks at his friends in dismay over his spontaneous combustion at the sight of her and says: “Tie me to the chair!” With Georgia Jarman on the stage, the line resonates.
By Peter Stelling
October 2, 2007 1:47 PM | Link to this
This is in response to Pierre Ruhe’s review of Atlanta Opera’s TURANDOT. (See article: “Atlanta Opera will sing praises to new Cobb home”, AJC September 30, 2007):
Since the premise of “victory or death” that drives the plot of TURANDOT hinges on the ability of the protagonist to solve riddles, it seems appropriate to open any comments on this opera with a riddle of my own:
Q: When do the words “joy” and “executioner” rhyme? A: When you translate them into Italian: (“gioia” and “boia”).
Mr. Ruhe was feeling joyous on Saturday night over the grand new digs that have miraculously sprung out of the red earth of extreme southern Cobb County to provide a magical home for Atlanta Opera; so joyous in fact, that he let the building upstage the production in the process of writing his review. It is wonderful that Atlanta Opera has this fabulous new home, and I would be lying to say that I wasn’t thinking a great deal about the future of opera in Atlanta myself while hearing the first opera in this fine new hall. But the few comments he deigned to focus on the specifics of the first production in this venue damned it with faint praise.
Puccini’s ultimate composition, the product of a composer in the full flower of maturity, like FANCIULLA DEL WEST, is so heavily complex and through-composed that it often cheats the soloists of well-deserved applause. Unlike FANCIULLA, TURANDOT has more well defined arias, but they are woven deeply into the texture of orchestral and choral passages which speed the action of the drama along on its path. When there are “name” singers on the stage, the audience explodes into applause at the completion of an aria, drowning out the continuing action from the pit and the wings, and nobody cares because we can all go home and listen to those parts on our CD players anyway. That’s part of the enjoyment of live opera.
Lori Phillips’ Turandot deserved an interruption of that nature at the completion of “In questa reggia”. She has a big voice and, miraculously, I heard a timbre of burnished steel and a heft that reminded me just a bit of Birgit Nilsson. This soprano should have been singled out for special praise. Her voice is right for this role and for the dramatic soprano roles of later Verdi. I am sure we will hear more from her on the Atlanta Opera stage.
Angela Fout as Liu floated a lovely pianissimo at the end of “Signor ascolta” but did not have the power to project her arias as we have come to expect from listening to sopranos like Tebaldi, Scotto, and Caballe in that role. If we had been in the Atlanta Civic Center, I fear much of her singing would have been inaudible. Again, we are grateful for this new home.
In the role of Calaf, Philip Webb provided his reckless character with the proper air of abandoned swagger and delivered “Non piangere Liu” and “Nessun dorma” with a sustained force that belies the comments he received here in his performances as Cavaradossi in TOSCA two seasons ago. “Nessun dorma” deservedly received an enthusiastic response from the Saturday night audience.
Yes, this was a very traditional production. Stage direction did not attempt something new and different to probe the psychological depths of the characters. But most people in the Atlanta audience have not had the experience of multiple viewings of this opera. The modern marvel of simultaneous translation and the forthright delivery of the cast was more than sufficient to do the story justice and to pull us into its fantasy.
Sets and costumes rented from the Dallas Opera created a mythical China that struck me as grand and magnificent rather than “kitschy” as described by Mr. Ruhe. Unlike the highly criticized MET production by Franco Zeffirelli, which overwhelmed singers and story alike in the attempt to fill the cavernous stage at Lincoln Center, this production combines pageantry and fantasy in a way that is thoroughly entertaining and charming. The greenery in the moonlit scene surrounding Calaf’s “Nessun dorma” in Act Three looked like it had all been carved from jade, reminding one of the huge and intricate carvings the Chinese create from a single piece of stone. Turandot’s chamber at the top of the stairs in the palace was an iridescent, pearl toned orb, which alternately served as the rising moon and as a kind of “in utero” home for a full-grown woman with a psycopathic fear of intimacy. In a production of this nature, experimental stage direction was not required to reveal the inner motivations of the characters.
Under the baton of Arthur F*, the Atlanta Opera Orchestra never sounded better. If he is being considered as a potential future Music Director for the company, his first appearance with them certainly bears out their interest. Kudos to the Atlanta Opera Chorus for the fabulous job they did in such a complex opera which requires their full participation throughout most of the action.