facing the cold
by Douglas Messerli
Giacomo Puccini (composer), Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa (libretto,based on Scénes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger) , Robert Dornhelm (director), La Bohème / 2008 [Filmed opera]
On Sunday, September 27, 2009, Howard and I attended a movie presentation of the opera La Bohème at the Music Hall theater in Beverly Hills.
Continuity throughout the film was poor, with obviously false snowflakes alternating between blizzard and gentle snowfall in a matter of seconds. Mimi's eyes in some scenes looked less like a victim of consumption than that a prize-fight boxer who'd been terribly roughed up; yet a few seconds later her makeup lightened and she was relatively pale.
Dornhelm also presented some of the operatic duets as internal dialogues rather than sung recitatives, giving the characters a strangely mute appearance, often at the most lyrical moments of the music.
For the most part, the singing was admirable, with beautiful performances by Rolando Villazón as Rodolfo, Anna Nerebko as Mimi, and Nicole Cabell as Musetta. But why Dornhelm could not find two Baritones, Marcello and Schaunard, who could both act and sing (George von Bergen's and Adrian Eröd's performances were sung by Boaz Daniel and Stephane Degout) is beyond me. I thought every young Baritone cut his teeth on these roles? I found the lip-synching distracting.
For all that the opera was as joyful and emotionally wrenching as any La Bohème, and most of the rather geriatric audience could be observed weeping at opera's end.
Normally, I might not have even written on such a well-known chestnut, presuming there is little more to be said. But a few observations might be useful, nonetheless. Throughout the opera the characters seek, other than food and the money to purchase and sustain them, primarily only three things: heat, light, and love. Of course, love can also provide some spiritual heat and light, and light, in turn, often results in heat and, particularly in the Spring, emanations of love.
The problem for these bohemians however, one they daily face, is that they have little of the first two. Luigi Illica's and Giuseppe Giacosa's Paris has always seemed to me to be more like a Siberian settlement than the City of Light. Yes, we know it snows in Paris, and the temperature can be frigid; in January of this year, thousands of travelers were stranded at Charles DeGaulle International Airport, the Eiffel Tower was closed, and temperatures for several weeks plunged to 10 Celsius. But most would tell you that while it snows in Paris, it is not a common event. Yet the world of La Bohème is a particularly dark one, in which, so it seems, every day is a frigid challenge.
Roldolfo and his friends begin the opera singing of their cold bodies, determining to burn either the room's only chair or Marcello's new painting; Rodolfo offers up the pages of new play, which "perform" very badly. The "play," so they jest, is not one that will last. Schaunard arrives just in time, food and wood for the fireplace in hand; he has been paid for playing the piano for a parrot.
Soon after, with Rodolfo alone in the room, Mimi knocks, claiming her candle has gone out, and much of the rest of the scene is spent with the two of them crawling about in the dark as they look for her lost key and fall madly in love. Rodolfo's first touch of her shivering hand reveals what will remain the theme throughout the opera, how to keep Mimi warm. As their candles both dwindle, they sing of their dreams, love of the Spring and light, Mimi explaining her pleasure in roses.
One of the first of Rodolfo's acts after meeting Mimi is to buy her a bonnet, his attempt, symbolically, to warm her. The Second Act continues the warming theme with food, drink, and the emotionally-wrought and comic song of Musetta, aimed primarily at her former lover, Marcello. Sparks fly. All in all, this is the most well-lit and warmest scene in the entire production.
Rodolfo and Mimi are too deeply in love, however, to separate in this frozen landscape; they can only wait until April, when, at least, light returns and the flowers, and with them come the warmth of Spring and Summer.
The end of this constant struggle, the necessity of having to continually face the cold, is played out in the last act, inevitably with Mimi's death. Yet even here, as they try to symbolically warm her, Musetta and Marcello running out to buy Mimi a muff, there is little warmth and even less light. Even trying to warm Mimi's medicine is an effort, as the flame threatens to go out. Singing to his coat—the only thing he has to keep the cold away from his flesh—Colline prepares to pawn it, sharing the money with his fellow sufferers. Love, it is clear, has survived in all of these good people, but without heat or light their love cannot heal or salve the living.
Los Angeles, September 28, 2009
Reprinted from Green Integer Blog (September 2009).
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