This Bohemian rhapsody just never fades

Hauntingly beautiful arias, with ordinary people in the spotlight, struggling to cope with life and love … yes, La Boheme is back.

Joyce El-Khoury as Mimi and Ivan Magri as Rodolfo in Opera Australia's La Boheme. Picture: Keith Saunders

• Fitting farewell to a loved figure
• Barenboim’s Brahms balm
• 120 years of mellow yellow
• Celebration of a great voice

Hauntingly beautiful arias, with ordinary people in the spotlight, struggling to cope with life and love … yes, La Boheme is back, this time for its third or fourth outing since director Gale Edwards updated Puccini’s incomparable opera nearly nine years ago.

As the program notes tell us, the composer’s early life was that of an impoverished student, not unlike that of the opera’s protagonists.

“I lived that boheme when there wasn’t yet any thought in my brain of seeking the theme of an opera,” he wrote in his diary, adding that his success was due to putting “great sorrows in little souls”.

This time around, a talented cast, an outstanding chorus and the composer’s lyrical melodies combined to make a highly promising start to the opera season.

The four leads were outstanding in this production, updated from 19th-century Paris to the Weimar Republic of the 1930s.

APPEALING

Lebanese-Canadian soprano Joyce El-Khoury made an appealing Mimi, the consumptive seamstress who falls for the struggling poet Rodolfo, played by Sicilian tenor Ivan Magri.

El-Khoury, with her dark sultry looks and seemingly effortless vocal control, was impressive from the start, her voice rising and falling as the sickness in Mimi’s lungs ebbed and flowed.

Magri, a former student of the late Luciano Pavarotti, made a nervous start but he quickly settled, his rich tenor ringing out strongly and clearly.

Australian audiences may not be familiar with Magri’s work but he has had a stellar career, starting with his debut as Ernesto in Donizetti’s three-act comedy Don Pasquale in 2006.

The role of the brassy Musetta is a much-coveted one; it offers performers a chance to explore their sauciest, extroverted self while singing their hearts out.

Russian soprano Anna Princeva took full advantage here, confidently strutting the stage as she wooed her former lover, the struggling Marcello, played with flair and a touch of simmering anger by talented baritone Samuel Dundas.

Conductor Benjamin Northey urged the orchestra to even greater heights and the chorus did not disappoint either

Princeva showed talent at an early age. She began playing the piano at the age of 5 but became more interested in singing while attending the Conservatory ín St Petersburg.

On opening night here, the supporting players were impressive too.

Shane Lowrencev, he of the lofty frame and the low bass-baritone, played the musician Schaunard as an irrepressibly camp charmer, and Taras Berezhansky made his mark as the philosopher Colline, especially with the mournful coat song in the final act.

Conductor Benjamin Northey urged the orchestra to even greater heights and the chorus, under Anthony Hunt, did not disappoint either.

A rousing start to the season, with another Puccini opera, Turandot, to come this month.

DETAILS

● OPERA: La Boheme

● STARS: Joyce El-Khoury, Ivan Magri, Samuel Dundas, Anna Princeva

● AT: Sydney Opera House

● UNTIL: March 28

● BOOKINGS: 9250 7777, [e-mail]