![]() ![]() It’s during the second act, the Christmas Eve festivities at the Café Momus, that Kosky and his designers pull out all the stops! A cleverly revolving stage transforms the scene into a Parisian menagerie of bohemians and demimonde denizens, garishly painted prostitutes, Chinese opium smokers, tuxedo-clad slummers, wine-carrying waiters, leather-booted dominatrixes, slinky transvestites and a death-mask marching band!” Picking out the cast among this swirling throng is like finding “Where’s Waldo.” In this black and white world (designed by Rufus Didwiszus), color is provided by Victoria Behr’s eccentric, period defying costumes. And at its bleakest moment, during the entire third act winter street scene, the stage picture is reduced to a single grainy backdrop photograph. That being said, anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of early photography will quickly realize Marcello hasn’t got the faintest idea what he’s doing.Ī mosaic of faded Daguerreotype plates serve as a backdrop to the bohemian’s garret, their fading portraits watching over the action like so many ghosts. Visually, Kosky sets the action during the emerging age of photography, transforming the painter Marcello (sung by the robust baritone Kihun Yoon) into a photographer. What is abundantly clear, this is a very different “La Bohème” than the one LA audiences have grown used to, by turns bleak and raucously perverse. We’ll never know whether the opera’s difficult balancing act between tragic passion and buddy antics would have been more adroitly focused had Kosky been able to direct. It was also unfortunate that Kosky was so occupied with opening his own season, he was forced to sent a representative, Katharina Fritsch, to oversee the Los Angeles staging. LA Opera simply does not have that luxury. ![]() In Berlin (due in no small part to government support), Kosky had eight weeks of rehearsals to shape and define his concept. The cast is led by two charismatic young singers, Albanian tenor Saimir Pirgu as the struggling writer, Rodolfo, and American soprano Marina Cost-Jackson as a decidedly spunky, yet consumptive, Mimi. ![]() This “La Bohème” has as much in common with the spirit of “Rent” as Puccini’s characters struggle against poverty and disease, doing whatever it takes to raise their spirits while they attempt to create art. ![]()
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