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La Boheme.
 Following
on from their internationally acclaimed production of Richard
Wagner's 'Ring' Cycle, this month sees former Australian Opera's
artistic director Moffat Oxenbould's acclaimed production of
Puccini's 'La Boheme' presented for four performances at the
Festival Theatre.
Oxenbould has a long and distinguished career in direction and administration, and since his retirement, has continued to be involved in music teaching and broadcasting, as well as directing Mozart's 'Idomeneo' in Houston with Susan Graham.
It is fair to say that Puccini's 'La Boheme' may well be Australia's favourite opera, due in no small part to Baz Luhrmann's acclaimed early '90s production which has since been successfully mounted on Broadway and can be seen as a prelude of sorts to the phenomenally successful 'Moulin Rouge'. Oxenbould's production has certainly added to its popularity: it's been staged in Sydney and Perth prior to this month's Adelaide season. It is also perhaps the most 'human' of Puccini's masterpieces, a true ensemble piece that never seems to date.
Oxenbould is more than happy to revisit the scene of his success. "'La Boheme' is a fantastically well crafted piece. In this instance we've got some people who've never done the opera before: the two ladies (Leanne Kenneally and Kirsti Harms). Neither has the Schaunard (David Thelander) for these Adelaide performances. There's so much of ourselves in 'Boheme'. No matter if you're young or old, you can identify with aspects of it. So it's always an interesting journey in terms of being the director, just to try to create an environment in which a particular cast can take ownership of the opera for a particular series of performances."
Oxenbould agrees that 'Boheme' is an opera which continues to reach its audiences and that much of its success stems from its effectiveness as lyric theatre. "'Boheme' has all of the vigour and youth of 'Manon Lescaut' - which preceded it - but it has far greater dramaturgical strengths. He [Puccini] obviously followed his own instincts and from his letters to his librettist, it can be seen that he was very demanding as to what would and wouldn't work as theatre. There are also Puccini's letters from his own early impoverished student days and his having to court success, and these things have informed it. So there's a lot of him and clearly his early falling in love that is a part of it.
"The magic of 'Boheme' is that there's always someone in the audience who's seeing it for the first time and for them, you want to make it a wonderful experience. However, it should also bring back a sense of nostalgia for those who've seen it fifty times. For me, because I've worked with it as an opera for many years, it's filled with ghosts from past productions too. I hear a passage and think of different people with whom I've had the pleasure of working, who have sung a phrase in a particular way. I remember the strength of their personality or what touched me about a performance or something like that, and of course these things inform what we take to the rehearsal room". He laughs that the opera "has the sort of roles that people are delighted to sing, and from my experience, that singers are reluctant to give up. You know, if you've sung Mimi or Rodolfo, then you want to keep doing it forever.
"It's a brilliant piece of lyric theatre where music and drama unite together to give a sort of double whammy experience and the music is utterly integrated with the text and vice versa, so they become one - and that's when opera's at its best. Ideally it is an ensemble piece". For the Adelaide production the cast is far ranging: "The tenor (Jorge Lopez-Yanez) is from Mexico, the soprano from Queensland. Somebody comes from Adelaide and someone else from Sydney. So we have to make a community of our own, and the best Bohemes come out of that ensemble feeling when you have trust and an appreciation of each other, and in consequence, you know what the others are going to do and their degree of intensity. The opera has an almost cinematic intensity -- some moments are almost like close-ups".
Brett Allen-Bayes
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'La Boheme' is performed at the Festival Theatre from Sat 13 to Sat 20 August.
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