“Bohemians” at the Metropolitan Opera

A little over two weeks ago, I wrote about the Great Performances at the Met on Public Television this past March 15, which I had saved in my xfinity list of recordings. The performance on that occasion was Kevin Puts’ two-act opera The Hours, which was very much a “first contact” experience. Today turned out to be my latest opportunity to view another saved broadcast from the Great Performances series. This time, however, the opera was one so familiar that I have lost count of all of the times I have seen it in performance.

Juliana Grigoryan and Freddie De Tommaso in the leading roles of Puccini’s La Bohème

The opera was Giacomo Puccini’s La bohème, which could not have been more familiar in the number of past accounts both in opera houses and on television. This was the latest in many stagings initially directed by Franco Zeffirelli. What was new, however, were the performances of the leading characters in the cast: Mimi, sung by soprano Juliana Grigoryan, and Rodolfo, portrayed by tenor Freddie De Tommaso. Sadly, the PBS Web page for this broadcast felt it would be superfluous to provide the name of the director that reconstructed Zeffirelli’s direction. More informative were the rolling credits at the end of the video itself, which identified the Revival Director as Mirabelle Ordinaire. Those credits also turned out to be the only source identifying the conductor as Keri-Lynn Wilson.

While this is far from my favorite opera, I feel a need to give any new production that is made available a fair shake. As a result, I was particularly drawn to Ordinaire advancing the narrative at just the right pace, even if she was doing little more than following in Zeffirelli’s footsteps! This is particularly crucial in the final act, where things just keep getting worse and worse leading up to Mimi’s death. Ordinaire delivered just the right pace to keep the narrative from descending into bathos. (I might almost suggest that her delivery was more convincing than Puccini’s music or, for that matter, the libretto text by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa!)

The fact is that whenever I encounter a Puccini score, I brace myself for the onset of squirming; but, thanks to both Ordinaire’s revival staging and Wilson’s command of the music, I managed to hold off squirming until the last half-hour of the performance!