We knew we were in trouble when the curtain rose on a bare, cross-beamed barn that looked more like a tool shed in the American Midwest than a Parisian garret. Despite a superior musical performance by a fine international cast, and firmly idiomatic orchestral playing and choral work from the promising Venezuelan-Swiss conductor Domingo Hindoyan, in his Lyric debut, the production is a major letdown, a misconceived case of too much here and too little there. Tenor Michael Fabiano and soprano Maria Agresta, as Rodolfo and Mimi, headed an excellent international cast. Would, one wondered, his new take on a beloved verismo warhorse prove as brilliant and engaging as his previous Lyric shows, Humperdinck’s “Hansel and Gretel” and Janáček’s “Jenůfa?” This new “La bohème” marks the return of the respected British director Richard Jones, whose new staging of Handel’s “Ariodante” will arrive here in the spring. 6 at the Lyric Opera House, after making initial bows in 2017 at the co-producing Royal Opera in London and the Teatro Real in Madrid. So the spirit of multiple Puccinis past haunts the new-to-Chicago production of “La bohème” that opened the season Oct. 10-25, 2019) ★★★ By John von RheinĮxcept for another Puccini favorite, “Tosca,” no work has graced the stage of Lyric Opera of Chicago more frequently than the Italian composer’s imperishable tearjerker, “La bohème.” The sentimental tune-fest about love and loss amid the impoverished young bohemians of Paris’ Latin Quarter in the early 19th century has received 102 performances up till now under Lyric auspices, spread over 16 different seasons, thus narrowly topping Verdi’s “La traviata” (100 performances) in audience popularity.
(Production photos: Todd Rosenberg) Review: “La bohème” by Giacomo Puccini, at Lyric Opera of Chicago through Oct. The singing is fine, but the new-to-Chicago Richard Jones production of “La bohème” is a major letdown, starting with the graffiti-strewn garret where the love affair of Rodolfo and Mimi unfolds.
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