La boheme is back

La bohème - Royal Opera House, 17 December 2012

When Rodolfo sounds more consumptive than Mimì, you’ve got a problem. Post-surgery, Rolando Villazón has had his ups and downs, but he was singing much better in Salzburg this summer than he could manage last night in the 999th revival of John Copley's La bohème. The notes were (mostly) there; the volume wasn’t. Despite Mark Elder’s considerate restraint, the orchestra often washed over him, and he bottled a few key phrases, not to mention their money notes. I can only hope for Rolando’s sake it was just an off night, perhaps a touch of the respiratory lurgy that seemed to afflict half the audience.

Mimì on the other hand sounded more like Lady Macbeth. Maija Kovalevska’s voice has matured from the sweet soubrette of a couple of years ago to an unwieldy powerhouse. She struggled to contain a fruity vibrato, steely top and sour intonation, conveying fragility only with a couple of game coughing fits.  Rolando’s diminished resources were no match.

On the plus side this is the first time I’ve seen Covent Garden’s venerable production properly rehearsed by all of the principals, not just those who felt like it, and it has breathed new life into the old warhorse. Those fiddly stage directions, usually mechanically replicated, have been thought through and reproduced with care and intent. 

Villazón and Kovalevska don’t have great chemistry, but they do express their passion with a rare and convincing physicality. Their playful first encounter seems tailor-made for Rolando’s clowning skills – bet it was his idea to hide her key in his mop of hair. Pity his exuberance didn't rub off on Mark Elder, whose low-calorie conducting, sensitive and well-judged though it was, could have done with a little more Italianate syrup. 

No complaints about the rest of the cast, a solid ensemble. Stefania Dovhan was a delightfully coquettish Musetta. Audun Iversen, whether by accident or design, made Marcello less fiery than usual – but with Rolando gambolling about perhaps that was just as well. David Bizic as Schaunard and Nahuel di Pierro as Colline bounced around with puppyish energy but sang with real elegance.

production photos (above) - Bill Cooper / Royal Opera House

curtain call photos (below) - intermezzo.typepad.com

 

Thanks to Kyoko for this curtain call video, which includes a rare glimpse at the orchestra:

Comments

[John]

Poor Rolando - another drubbing in the press today. He might not read reviews, but I bet his agent does. Has anyone listened to the Don Giovanni he's in - what's that like?

[High Bury]

What a let down from Mr R, I couldn't agree more that's why i left after act 3. I left consumed by how wonderful Calleja was in April & Just think only 4 years ago he (Villazon) was commanding the stage in Les Contes @ ROH

[John]

I wonder if Kaufmann will ever give us a Rodolfo? One can dream...he's just about the only top tenor who hasn't appeared in this production. Whatever Villazon's current vocal estate, I doubt it's to do with having had surgery - plenty of singers have been through it and it's never affected their vocal amplitude. Mattila had surgery in the early 90s and went on to triumph subsequently; likewise Radvanovsky.

[Jon]

Villazon was embarrasingly inaudible in the Operalia concert earlier in the year and these reports again confirm that his voice has diminished considerably since his vocal crisis.

I saw him as Rodolfo opposite Gheorghui in 2005 and he was superb, singing evryone else off the stage. It's a cherished memory, which was why I decided not to see him this time round.

[OperaBeginner]

I've only had one or two experiences in 30 plus years of going to the ROH, not expecting much from a singer I hadn’t heard of either in person or in the opera press, and then being overwhelmed. Once such experience was RV in Hoffmann at ROH – at the interval, I rushed out to buy tickets for all the remaining performances. I had booked tickets for all his Boheme performances but, after hearing him in the Operalia evening, I sadly returned all of them. I had a ticket for the rehearsal which I passed on to a friend who is no expert: she told me that ‘Rodolfo (Rolando Villazon) was a passable tenor but had quite a small sound.’ I don’t write this with any sense of joy, seeing what has happened to such an outstanding singer.

[Helena]

Such sad news. Rolando's voice seems to be quite unstable if anything. Heard him in L'Elisir in Berlin in March, and that performance certainly was a night off. Personally, I do not see the point of comparing his current (post op) voice to the voice he had earlier in his career as it is clear that voice is gone. Yet I do enjoy his singing enormously every time he gets it right.

[John]

I have to wonder how long he will continue to be employed if the reviews carry on like this - I see the ROH has avoided doing a "your reaction" article on this Boheme. He's signed up to do all the major Mozart operas for Deutsche Grammophon, so presumably he'll start singing them in the theatre - sounds like a better fit to me.

[Oroveso]

Surgery aside, it's really the same old, sad story. When he first burst upon the scene, full of genuine promise, youth and talent it was only a matter of a few seasons before he was singing roles like Don Jose and Don Carlo, infinitely too large, strenuous and dramatic for his lyric instrument. Agents, Impresarios and Conductors, who should have known better and flashed warning red lights, all looked the other way, taking the short-term benefit while another promising singer was squeezed like an orange for the juice, then the rind was thrown away.

[Romano Endrighi]

If you have a chance do not miss Anita Hartig singing Mimi at the ROH from February 16. I happened to see her at La Scala in October when the Theater announced that she would sustain the role of Mimi in place of an "indisposed" Angela Gheorghiu (insert comments). I wasn't really bothered by Angela yet another cancellation but I honestly did not know Anita. What a pleasant surprise and what a treat that night was!! She was superb, likable with a wonderful voice that, according to enthusiasts around the Theater, compared to M Freni! And the reception she had at the stage door was , well very Italian and she was visibly moved. This is what, for me, makes a night at the opera memorable, discovering such a young, great talent. If every AG cancellation came with such a replacement, I welcome many many more.

[inter mezzo]

Received via email from SJT, who is clearly brimming with festive spirit:

I thought Act III marked a new low in poor Villazon's post-problem progress, with all four Bs and B-flats either omitted entirely or sung down an octave. I genuinely didn't think he'd reappear after the interval, and quite probably shouldn't have. Elsewhere, he was barely audible. I didn't care for the Musetta at all, dull and shrill and with no sense of line: and don't get Kovalevska either, almost wholly unsuited to the role (too tall, at least for this tenor; too hard-toned; too unable to caress a phrase or convey anything by way of character in her actual singing).

Iversen is classy goods vocally; but I've seen lumps of concrete with more stage presence and animation. Only the Schaunard and especially the Colline seemed to me to get inside their roles dramatically and vocally. But then, they were all stuck flat up against quite the worst, leaden, unidiomatic conducting of the opera I've ever heard, all stop and no start, with all the energy of a power-cut. On this showing and the Adriana Lecouvreur someone should realise that Elder hasn't the faintest idea how verismo should go, or if he does, deliberately doesn't bother.

One for ghouls only, I'm afraid.

By the way, the greatly delayed start - which retrospectively I took to be indicative of tenor trouble, and which dumped the end well past 10.30 and therefore technically into orchestral overtime - turned out to be some poor woman in the wall-of-death Amphi who overbalanced and fell head-first from Row F straight into E, empty at the time, and whom the house's paramedics decided could not be moved without proper medical supervision by an actual ambulance crew. Even given the delay, there was much flashing of torches as she was finally carried out round about Benoit's entrance (she's OK, I learn, no more than badly bruised).

SJT

[SJT]

Christmas? Brimming?

Bah! Hamburg!

Off to Luxor to visit some old mummy instead....

[Helena]

I suppose we'll just have to wait and see. However, I do not think all hope is lost exactly, or not at least yet, tough his schedule does look frighteningly busy considering how unreliable his voice is…

[Justin Chapman]

Anita Hartig sang Mimi with WNO, did she not? In an exciting new staging by Annabel Arden...where a ticket cost a fraction of the price that CG are charging for that fossilised nonsense of a John Copely staging? Funny old world.

[John]

Yes indeed - and got great reviews. I wonder if Kasper is planning on directing a new production of la boheme himself soon - it's about bloody time!

[Adrian Sells]

I too saw him in 2005 in the only one or two performances he did with Gheorghui and was so excited, having caught him in the same role at Glyndebourne a little earlier and been blown away by his voice. I can only hope that his difficulties do pass: it would be a shame if such a vocal talent could only shine so briefly.

[Andres]

Hmmmmmm… I can see that Justin and John have eaten from SJT’s same joyful Christmas pudding. Please say that you are also going to Luxor to cast an Aida to end all Aidas! :)

[SJT]

Netrebko, Garanca, Kaufmann, Hampson, conductor Muti.

Simples. To think Casting Directors get paid...

Actually, the son-et-lumiere at the Temple of Karnak a mile away, though it deliberately avoids Verdi, is so astonishingly atmospheric under the envelopingly warm starlit evening air (18c, even in December) that if you half-close your eyes, it does all come alive. Unlike, say, McVicar's ROH staging, half Bunraku, half West Side Story, wholly crap.

[Ruth]

I agree - I saw Anita Hartig sing Mimi with WNO last season and she was wonderful. Young, sincere and with an ideal vocal timbre (to say nothing of her good looks and physique du role), I've booked for her cast twice. Can't wait. I've been telling everybody that that one's the cast to see, and yet it's the only one that's not selling out because so much of the ROH audience won't take a chance on singers they haven't heard of...

[Andres]

Nice, I'd go to that one.

Checking Hampson out - I'm glad to see he's coming to one of the first musts of the year, the Mattila all-Strauss concert at the RFH in January.

BTW, yesterday's Boheme was good. Villazon not as catastrophic as you'd think reading the reviews, but his voice diminished indeed. Kovalevska a bit too eager to please and show off but overall it was a good show. Audience wise, well, I'm not going to get grumpy...

[romano endrighi]

Ruth, I am glad to hear that you liked Anita H. and even happier to know that she performed at the WNO since I live in DC now.. and already got a ticket for Norma in March starring the great Angela Meade in the title role. You are right, sometimes big names don't live up to expectations but the public still won't explore what they do not know. Merry Xmas

[Dronner]

It's not only Rolando that meets this fate. MANY MANY singers end up like this, and the only difference is that they are less famous and have less musicality and artistry to begin with. But it's still a quite common thing.

Basically: Rolando, just like all the others before him and after, never trained properly. he used his natural instinct and physical talent, and blew his voice out - just like any other athlete that disappears before their time.

The ligaments in the vocal instrument are extremely sensitive and small - if you use the voice like he did, they will tear, very slowly, and muscular cramps will become persistent, stopping the instrument from working when under heavy load. Great singers with great technique train themselves not to ever EVER force the voice. It is easy to hear to the trained ear, overtones disappear, the body behaves in a strange way when you force the voice - evidence in the jaw, neck, throat, face - all evident on Rolando and another famous example: Carreras.

Why? It's easy to force your voice if you have one of the best instruments around. It's easy to forget that the body changes dramatically at the age of 35-40. It's easy to ignore teachers and mentors warnings when you are paid 15 000 Euro every performance.But no body in the world, except perhaps John Tomlinson (built like a tank), can have a career and force that amount of tension and pressure into the throat.

But musicality and beauty of tone like Rolando is easy to mistake for technique.

[Nikolaus Vogel]

Wrong WNO - Hartig was WELSH NO's Mimi in Cardiff - the DC of Wales! As for "great Angela Meade", where has she delivered a performance that can honestly be described as great as opposed to very promising? I'm sure she can sing Norma's notes, but so could Sutherland and few, apart from hard line Joanistas, would have deemed her a great Norma.

[Nikolaus Vogel]

Gwyneth pretty well got away with constant forcing, but there was a price to pay - an erratic tone production, occasionally squally tone and a few intonation issues.

[John]

Agree about Meade - the basic tone is often blowsy and her singing lacks depth - but I'd love to make up my mind in the theatre. Perhaps Ian Rosenblatt will offer her a recital soon? I fear she might need to lose a few stone before Perer Katona will deign to cast her - not that he applies the same criteria to Johan Botha...

[cunningfox]

And Gwyneth Paltrow is still like that.

[Nikolaus Vogel]

Meade would be a welcome addition to the RO roster. I'd rather hear her than Poplavskaya in the new Vêpres Siciliennes, but it's a Herheim show and he'll presumably prefer looks to voice. And of course it will be filmed for DVD and/or cinemas, so Poplavskaya is a no-brainer. Meade has emerged at a very bad time for robustly built sopranos. Couldn't agree more about the Botha double-standard, but he doesn't get to do many RO DVDs either. Was the Tannhäuser filmed? Presumably he will put the khybosh on the Frau being recorded for telly/cinema too.

[pat]

Saw the show tonight (10th).
RV indisposed, so we had Popov,Kovalevska, Iversen, Bizic, Di Piero, Dovhan.

I can only assume it was very much different to what was happening in December.
It was excellent. The whole thing balanced and hung together exceptionally well. Whilst it was not a state of grace night, not a star night, it was definitely one of those nights the whole thing worked together and provided an outstanding evening
Elder, who I just don't think gets Puccini at all, startled me ; I thought it a fabulous reading.

Kovalevska had elements of the parson's egg, but she was thrilling at times.
Popov was excellent.

I walked above pretty buoyedby a moving evening.