Opera Holland Park is marking the Shakespeare anniversary not with an opera based on one of his plays, but with Stephen Barlow’s new production of La Bohème, which relocates Puccini’s masterpiece from 1840s Paris to Elizabethan London and its theatrical and intellectual milieu.
On a mock-up of a Tudor stage, we find Shaun Dixon’s Rodolfo, looking like Shakespeare himself, scribbling at his writing table, while Andrew Finden’s Marcello slaves away at some big Renaissance canvas. Schaunard (Frederick Long) is a lutenist, Colline (John Savournin) a severe, Francis Bacon-type philosopher. Anna Patalong’s self-assured Mimi has designs from the outset on becoming the young playwright’s mistress and perhaps muse. Elin Pritchard’s outlandishly got-up Musetta is a self-dramatising shrew, waiting, perhaps, to be tamed.
It’s clever and witty, if at times a bit arch, particularly when Barlow starts employing the artifices and mechanics of Elizabethan theatre itself. But what makes it so engaging are some terrific performances and a fine sense of ensemble. Patalong sounds utterly gorgeous, and Dixon, despite an occasional tendency to rush conductor Matthew Waldren’s beat, is all twinkly-eyed virility and gleaming high notes. Together they are entirely convincing as a couple for whom a calculated pick-up unleashes emotions that neither can quite contain. Finden is swaggeringly attractive and Pritchard lets fly at Quando m’en Vo for all she’s worth. Waldren conducts with real passion. It’s funny, sad and sweet all at once.
- In rep until 25 June. Box office: 0300-999 1000.
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