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Review – Women dominate strong cast in HOT’s superb ‘La Boheme’

Hawai‘i Opera Theatre opened its 2016-17 season with a charming production of Puccini’s “La Boheme” (“The Bohemians”), a tragic love story of universal appeal that is at once personal and epic.

In “La Boheme,” four starving young men — a poet (Rodolfo), painter (Marcello), philosopher (Colline) and musician (Schaunard) — are struggling to make their way as artists in the Latin quarter of Paris when Rodolfo falls in love with the gentle Mimi, who is dying of tuberculosis. Marcello and his sometime girlfriend, Musetta, provide high-spirited contrast, and the six form a tight-knit band of working-class comrades, anti-establishment bohemians embracing the fleeting passions of life amid a cruel world.

HOT’s production, designed by Erhard Rom (scenery), Peter Dean Beck (lighting), Kathleen Trott (costumes) and Sue Sittko Schaefer (wigs and makeup), took a traditional approach, matching the opera’s 1896 period with an apt and artful look that supported without intruding.

Scenes are framed by large, proscenium-high cityscapes on side panels in urban grays and browns, with the bohemians and Yuletide celebrations providing color. The stage is dominated by a large central “V” step that interrupts symmetrical rectangularity, much as bohemians disrupted social structure.

The basic set transforms for each act: a slanted garret window for the bohemians’ cozy but cold attic; a festivity of lanterns for the street cafe and bohemians’ high spirits; a snowy city gate and lonely lamppost for the lovers’ spats and nadir; and a final return home to the attic.

HOT’s design sidestepped grinding poverty in favor of a more romanticized, genteel poverty that was disrupted only by Colline peeing into the stairwell, which didn’t seem to fit with the tone of the rest.

HOT’s casting was especially strong, and although outnumbered, the women ruled.

Elizabeth Caballero is a wonderful Mimi: Her warm lyric soprano has a gentle tone and an impressively large expressive range, with both power and delicacy. She is also an excellent actress, and her Act III aria — “Addio senza rancor” (“Farewell, with no hard feelings”) — was moving.

Caballero outpowered her partner, Rodolfo, sung by Mackenzie Whitney, whose beautifully clear tenor was stretched by the role but created an appealing leading man. Their Act I “Che gelida manina” (“Such cold hands!”) was charming.

As Musetta, Rachelle Durkin has an equally strong soprano, but with a ringing, brighter tone and more of an edge, which lent spice to her character. She worked well with Wes Mason (Marcello) as the spirited, quarreling couple that kept things lively. Durkin’s “Musetta’s Waltz” was a high point, and her off-stage “come-hither” snippet from the tavern in Act III was especially entrancing.

Mason’s virile baritone paired equally well with Caballero’s soprano, which made them especially simpatico friends.

Nathan Stark (Colline) is a bear vocally and physically, which made his farewell ode to his coat especially comical; Michael Weyandt (Schaunard) shone in his Act I caper about poisoning the parrot; and Kevin J. Glavin blundered and blustered memorably as both Benoit and Alcindoro.

Local singers in the hubbub of Act II included Johnathan Sholtis as Parpignol, the toy vendor; brothers Michal and Karol Nowicki, originally from Poland; Ian McMillan; and the Hawaii Youth Opera Chorus.

Conductor Karen Keltner delivered an outstanding, carefully nuanced interpretation of “La Boheme.” Under her direction, the orchestra sounded excellent, and Keltner crafted a lovely dialogue between pit and stage, pacing the drama while giving singers room to soar.

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Ruth O. Bingham received her doctorate in musicology from Cornell University and has been reviewing the musical arts for more than 25 years.

#HOTSpeaks: New Yorkers Return to HOT Year after Year

David and Mary Elaine Morris have been coming to Hawaii Opera Theatre productions for about five years, even though they live almost 5,000 miles away.

This weekend, the Manhattan residents will attend Puccini’s La Bohème on opening night. The Morrises continue to return, David said, because watching opera is one of Mary Elaine’s favorite things to do while they are in Hawaii.

“We try to time our visits to coincide with HOT’s opera schedule and will fly over for the day from one of the other Hawaiian islands to attend a HOT performance,” David said.

While in Hawaii, David likes to play golf, but Mary Elaine does not. To make up for her being a “golf widow,” David said, he tries to find things to do with her that she enjoys, such as attending HOT operas.

“He takes me to the opera as a treat,” Mary Elaine said. “I’m very fortunate, because I don’t think very many men or spouses who are here for golf find other things for their significant others to enjoy.”

The Morrises, who are also Metropolitan Opera season ticket holders, have seen operas at production companies throughout the United States and internationally, thanks to Mary Elaine’s love of the art form.

Though she has loved fine arts since she was young, Mary Elaine’s appetite for opera began when her father took her to see Verdi’s La Traviata in High School. She later took opera appreciation classes.

“When I walk in Central Park in the mornings, I listen to Renée Fleming’s arias or to the classical station of New York’s public radio station,” Mary Elaine said. “It just reaches and touches my soul. That’s what opera music does.”

The first time the Morrises attended a HOT production, David bought the tickets as a gift for their wedding anniversary. Since then, the couple has seen several HOT productions, including Verdi’s Aida in 2012, Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Mikado in 2014, and Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream earlier this year.

Sometimes the tickets were gifts for special events, like Mary Elaine’s birthday or Valentine’s Day, and sometimes the experience was just for fun.

“The staff has always been very pleasant and extremely helpful every time we go,” Mary Elaine said, “and I like that HOT brings in and utilizes local talent. I feel that’s very important to foster.”

The Morrises are looking forward to seeing La Bohème, they said. Mary Elaine loves the opera and has seen it put on by many production companies, including the Metropolitan Opera and the Paris Opera.

But she is excited to return to HOT once again.

“I just enjoy coming to Hawaii’s opera company,” Mary Elaine Morris said. “I know it’s going to be a great show.”

Star-Advertiser – Classic opera set in 19th century Paris will resonate with audiences in 21st century Hawaii

Opera is known for setting its stories in unusual, foreign locales, like “Aida” in Egypt, “Turandot” in China, or “Madame Butterfly” in Japan, or in unusual circumstances, like “Tosca,” set amid the ruling class during political upheaval in Rome.

“La Boheme,” the popular Puccini opera that opens the Hawaii Opera Theatre season this week, isn’t quite so exotic. It’s set in a grungy artistic community of Paris. The story involves characters with whom we readily identify, especially in a creative community like Hawaii: young artists, struggling to make ends meet or to make a name for themselves, preferably both.

‘LA BOHEME’

WHERE:
Blaisdell Concert Hall

WHEN:
8 p.m. Friday, 4 p.m. Sunday, 7 p.m. Tuesday

COST:
$29-$130

INFO:
hawaiiopera.org, ticketmaster.com or 866-448-7849, HOT Box Office – 808-596-7858

“It’s a realistic story,” said stage director Chuck Hudson. “It’s set in Paris in the 19th century, so it’s all about romanticism and love. It’s a story that tells itself very cleanly. Puccini is a brilliant storyteller as well as composer.”

So universal is the story — a “boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back” plot that incorporates both noble sacrifice and tragedy — that it was adapted for Broadway in “Rent,” with AIDS substituting for tuberculosis, the deadly scourge in “Boheme.”

Hudson identifies strongly with the story. He spent part of his 20s studying with mime Marcel Marceau in Paris, living in an old apartment with a view of the Eiffel Tower and windows that wouldn’t close.

“The 19th century arts studio in Paris, where a bunch of people are sitting around in these salons talking about art, talking about philosophy, that’s what this show is all about — but they’re also you and me,” he said. “We can really see ourselves— young, idealistic, in love, with a vision to change the world.”

Musically, Puccini’s work is considered one of the finest in the repertoire. Tenor MacKenzie Whitney, making his HOT debut, said his character, the poet Rodolfo, “is probably one of the top five tenor roles in all the repertoire — very demanding, because as an expressive man, you have to be able to sing with such gusto, be loud and heroic, but also be very sensitive.”

For Whitney, whose big aria is “Che gelida manina” (“What a cold little hand”) in the first act, it’s the pure pleasure of singing opera that drew him to the art. “The sensation of singing opera is like nothing you’ve ever felt in your life,” he said. “Your whole body is involved, and you create this sound, and just go, ‘Wow! I can’t believe I just did that.”

Soprano Elizabeth Caballero returns to HOT to portray Mimi, a fallen woman who becomes Rodolfo’s ill-starred lover. She especially enjoys the third act, when Mimi learns of the extent of her illness.

All of the lead characters have arias, including a rousing quartet at the end. “Musically that entire act is just so perfect,” she said. “From the beginning of that act, from where you hear the snow falling, it really sounds just like the way snow would sound.”

Caballero faces the challenge of singing beautifully while portraying a character with a fatal illness, but she said Puccini cleverly wrote that into the music. “Puccini wrote it very perfectly in act four, where he’s just asking Mimi to sound more faint of voice, and the orchestration for her is very faint and light. It’s really beautiful how he wrote it.”

It’s fitting for “La Boheme” to open the season for HOT, which is rolling out the red carpet for guests for today’s performance. “It’s the great first opera for people to see,” said conductor Karen Keltner, who waxed enthusiastic about the cast that HOT assembled for her debut here.

She expects newcomers to opera may see “La Boheme” and think, “Oh my god, these are people who feel the things I feel and go through some of the same things I go through.”