Review: S.F. Opera's ‘La Bohème' will make you feel all the emotions
You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll want to see it again.
Giacomo Puccini's 'La Bohème,' the most-performed and quite possibly the most-loved opera in the standard repertory, has opened San Francisco Opera's summer season with a bang. Under the baton of guest conductor Ramón Tebar, with snappy work by revival director Katherine M. Carter, this production at the War Memorial Opera House comes about as close to musical and dramatic perfection as you can get.
Each of the singers in the cast has real star quality — more on that in a bit. Just as importantly, they form a superb ensemble with the split-second timing of great comedians. Sure, there are big, famous arias, but the effectiveness of 'La Bohème' depends on swift movement from incident to incident.
During the opening-night performance on Tuesday, June 3, Tebar's flexible, generous conducting matched that timing and gave this sophisticated score, full of complex tempo and metrical changes, cohesion and tremendous momentum. Add in the magnificent playing of the San Francisco Opera Orchestra, performing despite unresolved labor negotiations, and the evening was sheer magic.
The basic story is uncomplicated: Boy (the poet Rodolfo) meets girl (the seamstress Mimì). They fall in love. She dies of tuberculosis, an incurable scourge in the 19th century. (If this sounds familiar, Verdi's 'La Traviata,' also a great repertory staple, has a similar trajectory, though a vastly different emotional profile.)
In tenor Pene Pati and soprano Karen Chia-ling Ho, the company has an ideal pair of leads. Pati's natural charm and beautiful, easy sound light up everything he does — he was an adorable Nemorino in 2023's ' The Elixir of Love. ' Meanwhile, Ho's shyness and fragility at her character's first entrance on Tuesday grew into real strength over the course of the opera, supported by her big, dark and beautifully controlled voice. There was real chemistry between the two, and you could believe that they'd fallen in love over a lost key only minutes after meeting.
That's the baseline drama in the opera: Will Mimì live or die? Will she and Rodolfo stay together or be driven apart by illness? The story of the painter Marcello (baritone Lucas Meachem) and sometime kept woman Musetta (soprano Andrea Carroll in a sparkling and very funny company debut) runs parallel. The couples pair off, split up, come together again.
Meachem and Carroll made their characters' love and affection perfectly clear, as well as the fact that the emotional cycle is likely to repeat indefinitely. This Marcello can barely bring himself to curse at Musetta wandering off with a new man at the close of Act 3, an interesting and persuasive dramatic choice emphasizing their hopeless love for each other. Carroll's Musetta might be a bit of a witch ('Strega!' as Marcello shouts), but she's as kindly toward Mimì as Meachem's warmhearted and enormously sympathetic Marcello is toward Rodolfo.
Rounding out the cast of bohemians are the philosopher Colline and the musician Schaunard. Romanian bass Bogdan Talos, in his company debut, sang Colline's aria to his old coat, about to be sold to buy medicine for the dying Mimì, with poignant, heart-wrenching intimacy. Baritone Samuel Kidd, a current Adler Fellow, integrated Schaunard seamlessly into the antics, projecting enormous sorrow even as he turns his back on the fading Mimì.
Bass-baritone Dale Travis was riotous as the landlord Benoit, outwitted by the bohemians when he tries to collect overdue rent, and as Alcindoro, Musetta's hapless admirer — roles Travis has played numerous times at the Opera.
Members of the San Francisco Girls and Boys Choruses enlivened the Act 2 Latin Quarter scene with enthusiastic acting and accurate singing, and the Opera Chorus brought its customary excellence to many moments.
David Farley's efficient production design allows easy transitions from the bohemians' garret to different places around Paris. The main dwelling, modeled on the works of painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, nonetheless seems a bit drab for a 19th century artist's studio. Regardless, Carter's direction brings a wealth of vivid interactions to crowd scenes and among the principals.
Eight performances remain, divided between the opening-night singers and an enticing alternate cast for Rodolfo, Mimì, Marcello and Musetta. For a great afternoon or evening, get out your handkerchiefs and get yourself to the War Memorial Opera House.
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San Francisco Chronicle
2 days ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Review: S.F. Opera's ‘La Bohème' will make you feel all the emotions
You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll want to see it again. Giacomo Puccini's 'La Bohème,' the most-performed and quite possibly the most-loved opera in the standard repertory, has opened San Francisco Opera's summer season with a bang. Under the baton of guest conductor Ramón Tebar, with snappy work by revival director Katherine M. Carter, this production at the War Memorial Opera House comes about as close to musical and dramatic perfection as you can get. Each of the singers in the cast has real star quality — more on that in a bit. Just as importantly, they form a superb ensemble with the split-second timing of great comedians. Sure, there are big, famous arias, but the effectiveness of 'La Bohème' depends on swift movement from incident to incident. During the opening-night performance on Tuesday, June 3, Tebar's flexible, generous conducting matched that timing and gave this sophisticated score, full of complex tempo and metrical changes, cohesion and tremendous momentum. Add in the magnificent playing of the San Francisco Opera Orchestra, performing despite unresolved labor negotiations, and the evening was sheer magic. The basic story is uncomplicated: Boy (the poet Rodolfo) meets girl (the seamstress Mimì). They fall in love. She dies of tuberculosis, an incurable scourge in the 19th century. (If this sounds familiar, Verdi's 'La Traviata,' also a great repertory staple, has a similar trajectory, though a vastly different emotional profile.) In tenor Pene Pati and soprano Karen Chia-ling Ho, the company has an ideal pair of leads. Pati's natural charm and beautiful, easy sound light up everything he does — he was an adorable Nemorino in 2023's ' The Elixir of Love. ' Meanwhile, Ho's shyness and fragility at her character's first entrance on Tuesday grew into real strength over the course of the opera, supported by her big, dark and beautifully controlled voice. There was real chemistry between the two, and you could believe that they'd fallen in love over a lost key only minutes after meeting. That's the baseline drama in the opera: Will Mimì live or die? Will she and Rodolfo stay together or be driven apart by illness? The story of the painter Marcello (baritone Lucas Meachem) and sometime kept woman Musetta (soprano Andrea Carroll in a sparkling and very funny company debut) runs parallel. The couples pair off, split up, come together again. Meachem and Carroll made their characters' love and affection perfectly clear, as well as the fact that the emotional cycle is likely to repeat indefinitely. This Marcello can barely bring himself to curse at Musetta wandering off with a new man at the close of Act 3, an interesting and persuasive dramatic choice emphasizing their hopeless love for each other. Carroll's Musetta might be a bit of a witch ('Strega!' as Marcello shouts), but she's as kindly toward Mimì as Meachem's warmhearted and enormously sympathetic Marcello is toward Rodolfo. Rounding out the cast of bohemians are the philosopher Colline and the musician Schaunard. Romanian bass Bogdan Talos, in his company debut, sang Colline's aria to his old coat, about to be sold to buy medicine for the dying Mimì, with poignant, heart-wrenching intimacy. Baritone Samuel Kidd, a current Adler Fellow, integrated Schaunard seamlessly into the antics, projecting enormous sorrow even as he turns his back on the fading Mimì. Bass-baritone Dale Travis was riotous as the landlord Benoit, outwitted by the bohemians when he tries to collect overdue rent, and as Alcindoro, Musetta's hapless admirer — roles Travis has played numerous times at the Opera. Members of the San Francisco Girls and Boys Choruses enlivened the Act 2 Latin Quarter scene with enthusiastic acting and accurate singing, and the Opera Chorus brought its customary excellence to many moments. David Farley's efficient production design allows easy transitions from the bohemians' garret to different places around Paris. The main dwelling, modeled on the works of painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, nonetheless seems a bit drab for a 19th century artist's studio. Regardless, Carter's direction brings a wealth of vivid interactions to crowd scenes and among the principals. Eight performances remain, divided between the opening-night singers and an enticing alternate cast for Rodolfo, Mimì, Marcello and Musetta. For a great afternoon or evening, get out your handkerchiefs and get yourself to the War Memorial Opera House.
San Francisco Chronicle
5 days ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
‘Harvey Milk Reimagined': What works and what doesn't in revised Opera Parallèle production
'Harvey Milk' is back. No, not the legendary civil rights activist, who was assassinated after becoming the first openly gay elected official in California history, but ' Harvey Milk Reimagined,' a heavily revised version of composer Stewart Wallace and librettist Michael Korie's 1995 opera. San Francisco Opera co-commissioned the original, performed here in 1996. Now, three decades later, Opera Parallèle — the local company that has made a mission of staging works by contemporary composers — is presenting the West Coast premiere of 'Harvey Milk Reimagined,' as part of a co-commission with Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. This production, which had its opening performance at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts' Blue Shield of California Theater on Saturday, May 31, comes at a timely moment, when the civil rights of transgender and other LGBTQ people are being challenged in the United States — a contrast to the hope that infuses Milk's story. The message of the opera is ultimately uplifting, even if the telling is at times harried. Korie has trimmed the libretto, which covers Milk's life from his childhood to his assassination by fellow San Francisco supervisor Dan White, While he removed a swath of secondary characters and a good amount of repetitive text, the libretto manages to retain many interactions and scenes. Still, the result feels too compressed and overstuffed, crammed with so much incident in its two hours that Milk himself, here portrayed by the sweet-voiced baritone Michael Kelly, feels out of focus. There's a lot of throat-clearing and scene-setting before his character is settled in San Francisco and running for office. Wallace's highly eclectic and fast-moving score contributes to the sense of trying to do too much. The revised opera starts with Harvey's Mama, tenderly sung by mezzo-soprano Catherine Cook, lecturing her young son (a star turn by tenor Curtis Resnick) about the Holocaust and being Jewish over a choral setting of the Mourner's Kaddish. Themes of identity overlap right from the beginning, as do musical styles. Mama also warns about 'men who are different' and reminds her son to come home right after the opera he's attending. From there, the score is constantly on the go, full of jagged rhythms and awkward text-setting. Sometimes this works — the scene with young Harvey at the opera, wondering who 'Tessa Tura' might be, is hilarious and evocative — but more often it feels rushed. Moreover, Ben Krames' sound design was far too loud, with each of the principal singers overamplified, blunting their portrayals and covering much musical detail in the 30-piece orchestra. (In a theater seating only 800, with a small orchestra, why amplify at all?) 'Harvey Milk Reimagined' is at its best when it takes its time: in the scene introducing Milk's lover Scott Smith, flamboyantly portrayed by tenor Henry Benson; in a loving late-night duet between Smith and Milk; and especially in the beautiful closing scene after Milk is murdered. The revision casts the role of the Messenger as a countertenor rather than a baritone, and Matheus Coura's supernaturally beautiful voice and striking presence in the part brought real magic to the close. Soprano Chea Kang as supervisor Henrietta Wong contributed a gorgeous solo there as well. Act 2 is more focused and covers Milk's emergence on the San Francisco political scene. Here his interactions with Mayor George Moscone, who was also murdered by White, and then-supervisor Dianne Feinstein provide insight into Milk's character and strategic abilities. Bass Matt Boehler and soprano Marnie Breckenridge, respectively, eloquently brought these politicians to life, with Breckenridge's additional brief turn as a Castro prostitute vividly jumping out of the mass of secondary characters. Tenor Christopher Oglesby's chilling depiction of White went from aggrieved and homophobic to truly mad over the course of the opera. Some choices made by the production team dull the work's effectiveness. The opera starts in New York City, where Milk grew up and lived for most of his life, and concludes in San Francisco, but the stage design — consisting of sets of stairs that are deployed in various formations and numerous hanging doors — lacks any sense of place. The projected photos of both cities don't quite do enough, leaving Castro Street feeling indistinguishable from Wall Street. The doors unsubtly symbolize the closet, where you'd find most LGBTQ people in the 1970s. The sets shift constantly around the stage and limit what director Brian Staufenbiel can do with his cast, particularly in the frequent crowd scenes. On top of all this, the costuming and styling of several characters seem slightly off, especially noticeable against the real-life photos and film the production uses. On Saturday, Nicole Paiement conducted with her customary sharpness and drive, though perhaps, in this case, less drive and more repose would have been to the opera's benefit.
Miami Herald
29-05-2025
- Miami Herald
Florida Chamber Orchestra spotlights opera's next generation
The Florida Chamber Orchestra, led by conductor Marlene Urbay, is giving audiences a glimpse into the future of opera with up-and-comers from South Florida. The nave at St. Dominic Catholic Parish in Miami will resonate with their powerful voices in 'Echoes of Tomorrow' at 8 p.m. on Sunday. Part of the Miami-Dade County Auditorium's 'Away From Home' series—an initiative bringing the arts to unexpected venues during the auditorium's renovation—'Echoes of Tomorrow' will feature vocalists from the studio of tenor and vocal coach Manny Pérez. The performers—Josue Brizuela, Claudia Céspedes, Ana Collado, Mayara García, London Gutiérrez, Dalila Lugo, Silvio Plata, and Isaac Rodríguez—represent a wide spectrum of backgrounds, stories, and ambitions. They'll be performing selections from 'Rigoletto,' 'La Bohème,' 'Così fan tutte,' 'María La O,' 'L'elisir d'amore,' and 'Cecilia Valdés.' Plata, a 21-year-old tenor born in Nicaragua and raised in Miami, this performance is deeply personal. 'Classical music became my greatest passion,' he says. 'It started as a hobby, but everything changed when I was offered a full scholarship to the University of Miami. I felt like life was giving me a sign.' The young singer who lost his sight as a child due to retinal cancer, feels music as a lifeline and a new way of perceiving the world. 'I was just a year or two old when my parents had to make the decision to remove both of my eyes. We had no resources, and the community came together to help us. Music gave me a way to give something back—something that brings peace, joy, and comfort.' He describes music as a sixth sense. 'Every song, every opera tells a story. It's how I understand emotions, how I understand my surroundings. Even though I lost my vision, music gave me a new way of seeing.' Also taking the stage is a 20-year-old Cuban-American soprano currently studying at Juilliard. 'Opera wasn't something I grew up with,' Lugo admits. 'My parents are not musicians—my dad, Blas Lugo, is actually a former international chess master. Music just wasn't part of my heritage.' Still, she recalls singing constantly as a child. Her parents encouraged it, even if they didn't always understand it. 'I was humming and singing in the car all the time. When I was seven, I started voice lessons with an opera singer, and it completely changed my path.' Along with a fierce commitment to mastering her voice, her love of opera deepened through years of study with Cuban-American colatura soprano Eglise Gutiérrez, also a student of Perez's. Now a student at one of the most prestigious conservatories in the world, Lugo finds opera to be more relevant than ever. 'People think opera is old-fashioned or inaccessible, but it tells real stories about real people. It's more relatable than people realize.' She also sees her participation in 'Echoes of Tomorrow' as a way to bridge generations. 'This concert makes opera accessible. It invites people in without intimidating them. And that's how we keep this art form alive.' Her performance of Ernesto Lecuona's 'Siboney' promises to be a highlight. 'I love coming back to Miami to sing songs in Spanish. In New York, I rarely hear zarzuela or Latin American art songs. Here, it feels like home.' At the heart of it all is Urbay, whose artistic leadership has shaped the Florida Chamber Orchestra into one of the few fully professional chamber ensembles in South Florida. As the orchestra approaches its 30th anniversary in 2026, 'Echoes of Tomorrow' is also a reflection of her enduring legacy. The daughter of acclaimed Cuban conductor Jose Ramon Urbay, Marlene came to Miami in 1991 as a political refugee with a distinguished international résumé but few professional prospects. She graduated from the University of Miami in the mid-1990s, rebuilding her credentials in a new country. 'None of the doors opened for me,' she recalls. 'So I did the only thing I knew how to do: I started my own orchestra.' Now 61, Urbay has led the Florida Chamber Orchestra for nearly three decades. Made up of 30 local musicians who also perform with the Florida Grand Opera and Miami City Ballet orchestras, Palm Beach Symphony and the Naples Philharmonic, the orchestra's programming often blends classical repertoire with Latin American and Cuban music to reach wider audiences. 'One thing that makes us different,' she says, 'is that we don't only perform Beethoven—we also play Lecuona.' Her mission has always included creating space for new generations of musicians. 'I've presented talented young performers every season,' she explains. 'Whether it's a pianist at age eleven or a young singer just starting out—these are the future voices of music.' But running a professional orchestra hasn't been easy. 'They don't teach you how to be an entrepreneur in music school,' says Urbay. 'I had to learn how to raise money, how to build an audience, how to keep going even when resources were scarce. And being a Latina woman in this field? That's another challenge altogether.' Still, her resilience and vision have endured, as she explains: 'We've carved out our own identity. Our audience knows who we are. And this concert is proof that the future of opera isn't just alive—it's thriving.' If you go: WHAT: 'Echoes of Tomorrow' by the Florida Chamber Orchestra as part of the Miami-Dade County Auditorium's 'Away From Home' series. WHERE: St. Dominic Catholic Parish. 5909 NW 7th St., Miami WHEN: 8 p.m. Sunday, June 1. COST: $40, general admission, $50 VIP for first to fifth row. INFORMATION: 305-993-9855 or visit is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don't miss a story at
