La Boheme

If anything is going to make me cry it is La Boheme and last night at Glyndebourne was no exception. The first time I saw this production I did not like the modern setting, but last night, with this extraordinary cast, it all made sense. The core of opera has to be good singing, but without good acting too all will fail. David Lomeli, Ekatarina Scherbachenko, Andrei Bondarenko and Michael Sumuel delivered fine acting performances that underpinned the whole. The quality of their voices on top was the gilding that made the whole resonate with a force that made complete sense of the modern settings. I cried at the start, I cried at the end and I cried when I got home. If I had any doubt it would be the pace at which conductor Krill Karabits took the opening scene, at times racing forward and leaving the complex layering of voices at odds with the tempo, but otherwise a fine evening. Bondarenko and Scherbachenko are certainly names to watch.

Glyndebourne, 14 June 2012
Rating:
Andrew Kay