Lyric Opera 2018-2019 Issue 7 La Boheme #2

O P E R A N O T E S | L Y R I C O P E R A O F C H I C A G O 28 | January 10 - 31, 2019 Generations of singers, especially Italian singers, have followed the Melba/ Caruso example since. Licia Albanese, Beniamino Gigli, the Renatas (Tebaldi and Scotto), Carlo Bergonzi, Franco Corelli, Mirella Freni, Luciano Pavarotti – all have had their careers in part measured by their assumptions of these roles, and to omit them from their repertoires would have been unthinkable. And no wonder. Few operas command such an expansive appeal as La bohème . Its recognizable characters boast a human complexity that anyone who has ever been in love, survived a breakup, or has just had to get the rent paid, can relate to. Their passions are expressed through workaday objects familiar to us all – a candle here, an old topcoat there, a bonnet, a muff. This essential humanity has rendered the piece virtually indestructible, even in an era of high-concept Regietheater. It is also one of the most musically accessible of operas, for audiences and singers alike. The score requires little virtuosic display – Musetta delivers a staccato run or two, and Rodolfo has one high C (which even Caruso occasionally transposed down). While nothing beats an all-star Bohème , youthful enthusiasm goes some distance in this piece, and younger singers can make an enchanting effect in it. Pop culture has reveled in Bohème . Musetta’s waltz is among the world’s most recognizable melodies, and has been covered by everyone from Della Reese to Vic Damone. Moviegoers sobbed along with Nicolas Cage and Cher when Moonstruck took us to Bohème at the Met. Joseph Papp produced a version starring pop sensation Linda Ronstadt and country king Gary Morris, and Broadway scored another hit with Rent , a reimagined rock version. Bohème has even survived one of its own problematic dynamics reasonably well. In Mimì, Puccini created the first of what have regrettably been dubbed his “little women” – roles typified by the heroine of Madama Butterfly or Turandot ’s Liù, who suffer and die for the love of a man. It’s a character convention that becomes ever more awkward. Yet Bohème ’s women are the opera’s driving force; the men only react. Mimì is a surprisingly modern character for her time. She seeks independence, respect, and a voice. It is through Mimì’s strength of character that everyone else in the opera, male or female, learns to love, forgive, and become their better selves. If audiences dismissed Bohème in 1896, they have lined up in droves since. La bohème is arguably the most beloved opera ever composed. It is the most frequently performed work at Lyric and the Met, where it has been performed more than 1,300 times. Even after innumerable hearings, the emotional lyricism of the score takes one’s breath away. From the first act’s exquisite pair of arias and emblematic love duet, we are gloriously transported through Musetta’s waltz, Mimì’s shattering farewell with the quartet that follows, and that ineffably affecting orchestral moment when the love theme is echoed in the final scene. The world now knows what Melba, Caruso, and a host of other singers have always known – and how grateful we should be for their wisdom. Mark Thomas Ketterson is the Chicago correspondent for Opera News . He has also written for Playbill, the Chicago Tribune, Chicago magazine, and the publications of the Ravinia Festival, Houston Grand Opera, Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts, and Washington National Opera at the Kennedy Center. Three singers who scored with “Don’t You Know,” the pop song based on Musetta’s waltz from La bohème : (left to right) Della Reese, Vic Damone, and Bobby Vinton.