As she so brilliantly demonstrated last season when she bowled over the audience (and the nominal star of the show, Joyce DiDonato) as haughty Elizabeth I in Donizetti's Mary Stuart, she can command the stage while spinning vocal filigree with the best of them. Soprano Katie Van Kooten (Mimi), tall and imposing, cuts an imperious figure onstage. Houston Grand Opera's new production, in collaboration with San Francisco Opera and Canadian Opera Company, keeps this musical warhorse on a slow, steady track, but only finds the romantic fire - and the heartache - within the supporting roles. Among the world's most beloved and performed works, this radiantly romantic tearjerker set among a community of struggling artists in Belle Époque Paris (poet Rodolfo, painter Marcello, musician Schaunard, philosopher Colline, paper flower maker Mimi and prostitute Musetta) never fails to make an impression.
La Bohème, Puccini's eternally fresh opera (1896), never shows its age.
0 kommentar(er)
