Oranges! Dates! Hot chestnuts! Nougat! Whipped cream! – to name only the most enticing treats on offer in the Latin Quarter on Christmas Eve, as depicted by Puccini in La bohème. Hawkers hawk, crowds shove, infants demand, in massed chorus. Together or alone, they greet the season against a backdrop of Paris, city of light, chimneys, smoke, wealth, poverty. The second act of this 1896 opera is a miracle of moving parts, dramatically and musically. Children and marching band bump heads with lovers at war and lovers – Rodolfo and Mimì – newly in love.
Few productions match Richard Jones’s for the Royal Opera, designed by Stewart Laing, with lighting by Mimi Jordan Sherin, in capturing this sense of all life and hope squeezed on to one stage. A trio of glass-ceilinged shopping arcades, at the mere push of a few stage staff, turns into a jostling Cafe Momus and then a lamp-lit plaza. New in 2017 and back nearly every year since, the latest revival (by Ben Mills) is scrupulously, extravagantly detailed and well sung, with the Ukrainian soprano Olga Kulchynska one of the most credible Mimìs in recent memory: a union of poise, modesty, passion, with a voice of pearl-like gleam.
Not everyone quite matched her level of perfection, but the cast on this occasion drew unusual sympathy, not for the plot situation, which is invariably moving – a young woman dying of tuberculosis – but for their individuality and warmth. This was particularly true of the Samoan-born New Zealand tenor Pene Pati, making his Royal Opera debut as Rodolfo. Though vocally a little uneven, he brought charm and nuance to the role of a young poet who learns maturity in the face of tragedy. Another house debut was that of the versatile soprano Amina Edris singing Musetta. Born in Cairo and raised in New Zealand (and married to Pati), she was convincing first as a flirtatious minx then as loyal and trustworthy friend.
As her on-off lover Marcello, the Russian baritone Mikhail Timoshenko returned to the role, extrovert and assured. His fellow countryman, the Russian bass Aleksei Kulagin, made a notable and touching house debut as the philosopher Colline, pondering the value of his ancient overcoat. Chorus excelled, as did the orchestra, settling after a surprised-sounding start. The Italian Speranza Scappucci, who is principal guest conductor designate of the Royal Opera, showed that Puccini at Covent Garden is in safe hands, even without its former music director, Antonio Pappano, who, earlier this month, conducted a brilliant and voluptuous concert performance of the composer’s La rondine with his new colleagues, the London Symphony Orchestra, at the Barbican.
It is a long way in many respects (I am talking specifically buses) from the Royal Opera House to Hackney, east London. This was the venue, this year, for an event we should all covet for its incipient mystery: the London Contemporary Music festival, the closest thing to an old-fashioned happening. Will it be in total darkness? Will it all be a cryptic puzzle? Will it happen at all? The beautiful, refurbished Hackney Church proved an egalitarian venue for LCMF’s particular style of experimental performance, from soundscapes to art film to speech to music, taking place in pools of light around the open space.
The theme this year, Let’s Create, might sound safe, but mischief, not safety, is top of the agenda. A mock letter in the programme, nominally from the stuffy 19th-century critic Eduard Hanslick, but in fact by ChatGPT on unusually witty form, attacked the festival for its “maelstrom of chaotic impulses”, “grotesque absurdity” and “cult of formlessness”. You get the drift. How Hanslick would have scorned the singular American minimalist Charlemagne Palestine, whose ululations with wine glasses, soft toys and organ from last week are now on Instagram.
Last Saturday’s concert had nine premieres, starting with artist-poet Christine Kirubi’s Sorry Bramble, a rhythmic wrangle of apologies and sorries, with sound by Shenece Oretha. The substantial Un fil invisible, by Argentine-born Beatriz Ferreyra (b.1937), exists as an online recording – she is a central figure in French experimentalism of the 1960s and 1970s – but hearing this maze of electro-acoustic noise swirl around the building, with only your ears to lead you through, was a lesson in how to listen.
I liked Songs to Strip By, a world premiere by Andy Ingamells with cellist Yseult Cooper-Stockdale. The supporting soundtrack credited 25 voices, including a Dublin bus driver. Snippets of popular songs shone out, including Can’t Take My Eyes Off You and Hot in Herre. It was steamy enough to slip your coat off. I did.
Star ratings (out of five)
La bohème ★★★★
LCMF ★★★★
