Giacomo PUCCINI (1858–1924)
La bohème (1896)
Mimì - Celine Byrne (soprano)
Musetta - Anna Devin (soprano)
Rodolfo - Merūnas Vitulskis (tenor)
Marcello - David Bizic (baritone)
Schaunard - Ben McAteer (baritone)
Colline - John Molloy (bass)
Benoît, Alcindoro - Eddie Wade (baritone)
Parpignol - Fearghal Curtis (Tenor)
Doganiere - David Howes (bass-baritone)
Sergente - Rory Dunne (bass-baritone)
Irish National Opera Chorus & Orchestra/Sergio Alapont
rec. February 2021, Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, Dublin
Libretto with English translation enclosed
Reviewed as downloaded from press preview
SIGNUM CLASSICS SIGCD702 [2 CDs: 107:03]
Irish National Opera is the newest opera company in Ireland, and it was founded as recently as January 2018 as a merger between Opera Theatre Company and Wide Open Opera. In its first 24 months of operation, they produced 72 performances of 14 different operas in 24 Irish venues,
and its long-term target is to visit over 20 Irish venues annually. I suspect that the pandemic hampered their activities during the next couple of years, but anyway they managed to produce this recording in February 2021, and that is a feat in itself. To judge from what I hear on this recording, the choral (24-head strong) and orchestral (30 string players on this recording) forces are in fine fettle, and the children’s chorus in the second act is fresh. Thanks to the excellent recording, Puccini’s delicate scoring does itself full justice, and conductor Sergio Alapont really makes the most of the impressionistic opening to the third act, transparent and atmospheric. One can really imagine the snow falling.
Generally speaking, Alapont choses sensible tempos, and there are no idiosyncrasies. Some listeners might find the fencing scene in the fourth act too brisk, but there is a youthfulness in the acting that more than motivates it more than enough. The rumbustious second act at Café Momus, notoriously difficult to keep in tight reins, goes acceptably well, though no one can beat Toscanini in precision. On the other hand, he misses the warmth with an inch or two. The lyrical breadth of the amorous scenes in the outer acts is another matter. Beecham and Karajan are still the most masterly here and they also have the most superlative soloists in los Angeles/Björling and Freni/Pavarotti respectively. The singers here, for all their capacities, are not in the same league – but they have their merits.
More than eleven years ago I reviewed a recital with Celine Byrne, who then was fairly early in her career. I was quite impressed by what I heard and returning to the disc after having listened to this La bohème, I listened again to Mimì’s aria, which I then thought was one of the best, and found that she sounded very much the same as on the complete recording. “…a touching portrait of the seamstress, whose fragility is well depicted…” I wrote then about the
Act I aria, and I can only echo my words concerning her reading here. Hers is throughout a sensitive and nuanced personification, maybe not so individual as los Angeles and Freni are in their respective way, but well worth mentioning in the same breath.
Merūnas Vitulskis, her Rodolfo, is in the booklet presented as “one of the most charismatic and
versatile Lithuanian singers of his generation” – a statement I have no reason to question. He is certainly good-looking, and he is obviously an excellent actor – also when one only hears him – and he is involved and nuanced; he lives his part. What he lacks – and that might just be my personal opinion – is the Italianate roundness of tone one would like from a Rodolfo. He certainly has the top C and other high notes that ring out with brilliance, and I greatly prefer his less sonorous voice production to leather-lunged can belto howlers.
Mimì and Rodolfo are so central in this opera that the rest of the cast land more or less in the background, but I still want to express my admiration for David Bizic’s manly and well-sung Marcello, baroque specialist Anna Devin’s bright Musetta, who is very touching in the last act, Ben McAteer’s Schaunard, a role who gives the singer few opportunities to show up, John Molloy’s Colline, dark, sonorous and noble in the coat aria and, not least, Eddie Wade who doubles as Benoit and Alcindoro. In particular he gives a rounded portrait of the landlord in the first act.
La bohème is one of the most frequently recorded operas, and it takes a lot to outdo the prevailing hegemony with Beecham and Karajan in the frontline and the likes of Serafin, Schippers, Santini, de Billy and maybe a couple of others as runners-up. Alapont isn’t quite there, but in his own right he has still a great deal to offer, and followers of the newly founded Irish National Opera can be proud of their company.
Göran Forsling
