(Listen to the pizzicato strings tiptoeing round Mimì and Rodolfo when they first meet. Herbert von Karajan understood every last detail in the score, and knew that the inner drama of the opera is played out in the orchestra in Puccini’s deft manipulation of his themes and the masterly orchestration. One singer’s hijinks are, however, welcome: Simon Butteriss’s double act as Benoît and Alcindoro is compelling.To work its magic La bohème needs two things above all: a conductor who relishes every nuance in Puccini’s music and a Mimì who moves our ears as well as our hearts. While Soar needs more mellow warmth for the brief fourth-act soliloquy, less would be more from Nadine Benjamin’s Musetta, who sings best in the finale when no longer vamping it up. Nicholas Lester sings Marcello with gentle warmth, and Božidar Smiljanić as Schaunard and David Soar as Colline complete a well-balanced male quartet.
Getting to sing “This hand of yours is freezing”, the American tenor Jonathan Tetelman makes his European debut as Rodolfo – a keen, sweet-toned performance that touchingly captures the love-struck poet, even if his voice is not quite of Coliseum-filling proportions. For now, it’s a poised performance, one in which she makes communicative use of Amanda Holden’s zesty translation. With her bright, glowing tone, Romaniw supplies the finest singing of the evening, and will perhaps settle in to become still more affecting as Puccini’s consumptive heroine.
True, La Bohème’s reputation as one of the ultimate ensemble operas is also sustained here, although an artist does stand out: the Welsh soprano Natalya Romaniw in a double debut, making her first ENO appearance and singing Mimí for the first time. In English National Opera’s latest revival, these are qualities that raise the evening above the routine. Yet still, there is never any telling which of its many certainties will dominate a particular performance, since Puccini’s masterpiece is many things – among them one of the most perfectly written of all operas, and one of few that seem to remain unassailably fresh. Nothing in the crazy old world of opera is quite so reliable as La Bohème.
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