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The Spinoff
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Spinoff
Review: La Boheme is intimate but inert
NZ Opera's production of Puccini's masterpiece looks and sounds lovely, but would it work better in a different space? Operas come with their own assumed cultural cache. Even if the general public – if such a thing exists anymore – isn't familiar with specific pieces, they at least know that certain operas exist, and that if they're still being performed they must at least be a little good. The Magic Flute, The Barber of Seville, and a few other Mozarts have this level of recognition. Puccini's La Bohème – the story of doomed bohemians in love – is another one of these. La Bohème is part of the standard opera repertoire, this most recent production being the fourth time that NZ Opera have performed it since the turn of the millennium, and it is regarded as one of the best operas of all time. You might also be familiar with it as the basis for the musical Rent, but La Bohème remains a far more interesting take on the source material, as it is loosely adapted from Henri Murger's Scenes de la vie de Bohème, which nobody reading this has read. (By the way, calling La Bohème a more interesting version of Rent is a surefire way to piss off fans of both shows.) Director Brad Cohen's new take on the show relocates it to Paris in 1947 – one of those oddly specific directorial setting choices that seems trendy in this artform – but otherwise feels fairly safe. For opera, it is a remarkably small scale story. Men hang out, men fall in love, woman gets sick, woman gets sicker, people get sadder. While there are a few moments where the stage is flooded by the ensemble, for the most part we remain with our core cast. Some of the singing seems oddly underpowered, sometimes lost under the orchestra. The men in the cast suffer the most here, stuck in the uncanny valley between mimicking the physicality of dudes hanging out with each other with the need to play out to the massive venue. As the doomed Mimi, Elena Perroni fares better, helped along by a gorgeous blue dress that seems to absorb the light, and a florid physicality that immediately defines the character. However, it's Emma Pearson as Musetta, easily the most fun character in the show, who stands out. She plays all the colours of the character, her darkness and her frippery, in a way that fills the stage rather than occupies it, but she also finds intimate moments that really stick out. There is one simple gesture toward the end of the show, a flick of a hand, that was so small and so specifically human, but still stood out in the massive space. 'Why do we go to the opera?' is a question I find myself asking when I see any opera, which is perhaps an unfair thing to ask of any one show. I don't watch an episode of Severance or say, even Family Guy, and ponder the value of TV as an artform. Opera is, however, a form that I am still very much in the process of understanding, and by proxy, truly appreciating. What I love about it is the spectacle, the fact that you can see every dollar onstage, and see what happens when art is supported to achieve that spectacle. Opera is a big artform, it involves human beings going large to achieve human truths even larger. La Bohème, or at least this production of it, is not what I go to the opera for. There is an intimacy to it that is lost in the Kiri Te Kanawa, and while the set strikes an initial gorgeous image – like the memory of a Parisian apartment in 1947 dropped in a sack onto the stage, complete with a sunlight hanging over them – the effect is lessened. Similarly, the moments of snow falling from the sky is also initially impressive, even moving, but becomes less effective on repetition. The tension of this intimacy is felt by the entire production (and perhaps this is the fault of the libretto). The moments where the ensemble come onstage feel obligatory rather than organic, and Chris McRae's delightful clown Parpignol, who entertains some children, is as much a jarring intrusion as his inclusion in the second to last paragraph of this review. I wondered what La Bohème might feel like in a more intimate space, whether a theatre like the ASB Waterfront or even Q's Rangatira could capture the small moments at the heart of this show. The show feels unfortunately inert, stuck on this massive stage rather than reaching out to grab us in the stalls. As a result, I felt similarly unmoved. I appreciate the beauty, the music, and what spectacle there is, but it sits at such a distance from me that it might as well be a sculpture. As with all opera, the human truths are there, but I wish I didn't have to squint to see them.
Euronews
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Euronews
In pictures: Austria welcomes JJ back home after Eurovision win
As JJ, whose full name is Johannes Pietsch, walked through the gate, hundreds of fans on Sunday cheered. Some played his song, others hugged him. The 24-year-old countertenor, whose winning song combines operatic, multi-octave vocals with a techno twist, and who also sings at the Vienna State Opera, held up his trophy in one hand and a big bouquet of roses in the other. He smiled, wiped away tears and told the crowd 'that victory is for you.' JJ is Austria's third Eurovision winner, after Conchita Wurst in 2014 and Udo Jürgens in 1966. Austria's president, Alexander van der Bellen, celebrated JJ in a video posted on X. 'What a success! What a voice! What a show!' he exclaimed. 'All of Austria is happy.' Chancellor Christian Stoecker wrote on X: 'What a great success — my warmest congratulations on winning #ESC2025! JJ is writing Austrian music history today!' The Vienna State Opera also expressed joy over the win. 'From the Magic Flute to winning the Song Contest is somehow a story that can only take place in Austria,' opera director Bogdan Roscic told the Austrian press agency APA. Several Austrian cities were quick to show their interest in hosting next year's contest. Innsbruck Mayor Johannes Anzengruber told APA that 'not everything has to take place in Vienna... Austria is bigger than that,' and the towns of Oberwart in Burgenland and Wels in Upper Austria also threw their hats into the ring. JJ himself said he hoped that Vienna would get the next ESC which he would love to host together with his mentor, Conchita Wurst.
The Guardian
13-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The Magic Flute review – humour, colour and plenty of drama in Opera North's kooky take
A child's fantasy or a skewering of grown-up power games? James Brining's production of The Magic Flute for Opera North, first seen in 2019 and revived for the second time this season, has a foot in both camps. Initially framed as the dream of the young girl seen heading for bed during the overture – its heroes, villains, and monsters conjured up from her toy box and a fractious family life – things turn starker and darker in Sarastro's palace, where misogyny and casual corruption undermine any cultish declamations about truth and love. It's still not a wholly satisfactory staging – the final tableau in particular is so enigmatic that the audience on opening night were audibly uncertain the show had ended, and forays into feminism also feel underdeveloped – but its humour and dramatic momentum are admirable, and there's a healthy helping of kooky visual appeal courtesy of Colin Richmond's sets and Douglas O'Connell's video designs. While a number of the cast return from the autumn run, there's also a clutch of notable firsts among the principals. Tenor Trystan Llŷr Griffiths makes his Opera North debut as Tamino – a Perrault-style Prince Charming with just a touch of Lohengrin in both voice and manner – as does soprano Nazan Fikret as a gleaming, formidable Queen of the Night, her accustomed ease apparent in what has become a signature role. Soraya Mafi, meanwhile, makes an exceptional role debut as a tenacious and principled Pamina: sung with thrilling assurance and swooning lyricism, she's a princess well worth trials by fire and ice. Fresh from last month's Love Life, bass-baritone Justin Hopkins is an icily charismatic Sarastro, labouring a little over his lowest notes but singing with appealing richness of tone elsewhere, and Andri Björn Róbertsson remains a towering Speaker in every sense. There are welcome returns, too, from chorus members Charlie Drummond, Katie Sharpe and Hazel Croft as a sassy trio of bewimpled, lightsaber-toting Ladies, and tenor Colin Judson as a grubbily lecherous Monostatos. And, best of all among the returnees are Emyr Wyn Jones's wildman Papageno and Pasquale Orchard's sparky Papagena: comic timing sharpened, and accents (Welsh and New Zealand respectively) gloriously intact, they're the double-act of dreams – and Jones's mellifluous baritone in particular seems to have gained depth even since September. One further debutant is arguably the making of this revival. In his first (and surely not last) appearance with the company, conductor Patrick Lange's fleet-footed tempi and knack for colour have the Orchestra of Opera North playing at the top of their game: a Magic Flute brimming with all the light and humanity which its final chorus proclaims. At the Grand theatre, Leeds, until 22 February. Then touring until 29 March.
