Nineteen-fifties Italian cinema seems to hold a certain fascination for opera directors at present. Hard on the heels of Rodula Gaitanou’s Opera North staging of Ariadne auf Naxos, which reimagined Strauss in terms of Fellini working on one of his more surreal phantasmagorias, this new production of La Bohème by Natascha Metherell for Opera Holland Park, also relocates Puccini to a 50s film studio, where a Visconti-style costume pic, set in Second Empire Paris and entitled La Vie Parisienne, is being shot. Gaitanou’s Strauss production was able to carry the idea off thanks to the emphasis on the relationship between reality, illusion and creativity in the opera itself. The realism and directness of La Bohème, however, sit uneasily with multiple layers of reference and postmodern irony, and Metherell’s staging on occasion leaves Puccini swamped.
Her basic idea elevates Alcindoro (Henry Grant Kerswell) to the status of the film’s director (Elizabeth Karani’s chanteuse Musetta starts out as his mistress), and the drama plays itself out among the studio workers hovering at times on the peripheries of the industry to which they are drawn. Adam Gilbert’s Rodolfo is an aspiring screenwriter in love with Mimì (Katie Bird) from the wardrobe department. Colline (Barnaby Rea) rushes around with a clapperboard during shoots, and Harry Thatcher’s nattily dressed Schaunard is a budding composer on the make. Ross Ramgobin’s Marcello, meanwhile, is designing a big sword-and-sandals epic in production elsewhere at the studio.
