Recensioni di produzioni precedenti
7In the case of Jo Davies’ production for Welsh National Opera, it is not overstating to say, top of the league.
The production is defined by a feeling of inexorable accumulation and breakthrough, exquisitely soundtracked by the simple modulations and textural transformations of Glass’ score. Ordinary objects – corrugated iron, wicker baskets, paper and cardboard – manifest extraordinary creatures – some grotesque, some beautiful – that teem with awkward life. As a political allegory for how collective action transforms everyday life, it was deeply moving.
Richard Jones’ production revived with warmth, elegance and added resonance
Café Momus on Christmas Eve is clearly suffering from a waiter shortage; fewer customers too, plus a shrunken crowd milling outside. Otherwise, there are fewer changes than you might expect in Dan Dooner’s Covid-conscious, socially distanced edition of Richard Jones’s 2017 production of Puccini’s masterpiece. The snow continues to drift from the heavens, and the bohemians’ Paris garret hasn’t got any warmer. More to the point for this story of sudden love, poverty and cruel death, the characters still intermingle, embrace, and, in the case of Musetta, bite. Meanwhile, down in the pit, an orchestra of 74 has been stripped down to 47, armed with Mario Parenti’s reduced orchestration. Yet despite much lighter forces, Puccini remains Puccini.
Andri Björn Róbertsson's Gremin was exquisitely sung
The entire show’s pace, coherence, and emotional impact is assured by Matthew Kofi Waldren, who conducts with an unerring sense of theatre
