La Bohème, WNO, Cardiff, and Salome, Covent Garden, review

FRESH, open and heartfelt, Annabel Arden’s lovely new production of La Bohème is marked by a filmic fluidity and simplicity. Parisian landscapes and images of night skies and snowfalls are projected on to gauzy scrims, with minimal props and costuming suggesting the fin de siècle era during which Puccini composed the opera.

There are no tricks, nothing seems faux or grafted. But Arden’s unassertive direction makes the joy and disillusion of these young people real and their tragedy immediate.

Anita Hartig, a young Romanian soprano based in Vienna, was making her British debut as Mimì. She is a real find, with a voice brighter and cleaner in timbre than her celebrated compatriots Ileana Cotrubas and Angela Gheorghiu. She sang with immaculate clarity and poise, shaping the little seamstress’s anguish in Act 3 with impassioned musicality.

Her Rodolfo, the Catalan Alex Vicens, suffered from the tenorial vice of pushing a lightweight instrument out of its comfort zone, but both vocally and in terms of stage personality, he radiated puppyish charm. David Kempster and Kate Valentine presented a splendidly boisterous double act as Marcello and Musetta, while David Soar bade an eloquent farewell to Colline’s old coat, and Gary Griffiths made a nicely flamboyant Schaunard. Exuberant yet relaxed conducting by Carlo Rizzi crowned a sparkling triumph for Welsh National Opera.

No such luck, alas, at Covent Garden, where David McVicar’s gruesome production of Salome, redolent of the Fascist Thirties and Pasolini’s Salò, has been limply revived by Barbara Lluch.

In the title role, Angela Denoke presents a Nazi starlet rather than a spoilt teenage princess. It’s a seasoned and resourceful performance, marred by pitch problems and a failure to embody the virginal innocence that is the character’s paradoxical allure. Egils Silins was a granitic Jokanaan, Stig Andersen’s woolly Herod seemed awfully feeble. None of the other soloists made much impression, though the gaggles of Jews and Cappadocians were forceful.

Andris Nelsons’ conducting needs more attention to detail and time to settle, but he gripped the drama tautly and gave it pulse and fervour.

Not for the first time this year, the number of empty seats was scary.

La Bohème until June 9 (then touring); 029 2063 6464 Salome until June 16; 020 7304 4000