San Diego Opera's Fist Performance of 2010 Season: Puccini's La Boheme

The 2010 San Diego Opera season began Saturday night with an opera whose many catchy tunes everyone, opera fans or not, is familiar with - Giacomo Puccini's La Boheme.

As far as operas go, this is a very fast moving story. The poet Rodolfo was lingering in his cold loft as his friends; Marcello, Colline and Schaunard headed off to find a table at popular Cafe Momus. There was a knock on the door and in came his fragile and thin new neighbor, Mimi, whose candle needed re-lighting. They fell instantly in love and joined up with Rodolfo's friends at Mamus as a couple. It only lasted less than two months, however, as Mimi's tuberculosis was worsening, Rodolfo found it hard to deal with the fear of losing her. Marcello interfered and helped them reunite (all the while having fights and make ups of his own with the feisty Musetta). Their happiness is short lived, however and the opera's ending is second only to onions in its weepy effects on sensitive opera goers.... providing that Mimi and Rodolfo are well cast, of course.

The staging and direction by Loren Meeker is traditional and unobstructive, putting the actions right in front of the stage much of the time (which makes it easy to follow what is going on). It helps that all the main singers seemed very comfortable with each other and exhibited very good chemistry as friends and lovers. The show was quite well oiled even though this is the first performance of the run.

The star of the evening was undoubtedly the sterling voice Rodolfo of Piotr Beczala. Whatever hypes preceded his first appearance at the San Diego Opera were more than well met by his consistently beautiful tones, lyricism, and impeccable sense of melody. His reading of the character may not be as interesting and/or totally dramatically invested as what one might expect from a Rolando Villazon, but the Polish tenor sure put on a singing masterclass on the stage last night. His dynamic control, once he had adjusted to the rather voice-deadening acoustic of the nearly filled out Civic Theater, was perfect. He took the interpolated high C along with Mimi at the end of Act I, though the quality of it was such that even the most drama-oriented among the audience would find it hard to object. In fact, it appeared that the only thing the audience objected about him was the fact that the fire curtain came down and prevented them from keep on cheering and applauding all night long.

Making her house debut as Mimi was the young American soprano Ellie Dehn, a name not known by most but one quite worth remembering. There is really nothing to nitpick on her on the look and acting departments, though her sweet voice seemed a bit rebellious above the stave (loud by necessity for most of the opera) while rather under-projected in low-lying passages where she tended to get covered by the orchestra (Puccini was in the habit of doubling the vocal line with instruments when he composed this work). She got to show off her soft-singing skills to very good effects in the final act, however, and earned a warm ovation at the curtain.

As Marcello and Musetta were veteran Jeff Mattsey and local girl Priti Gandhi, making her first appearance in a principal role on the operatic stage. Even after many performances of Marcello Mr. Mattsey still managed to appear fresh and youthful as Rodolfo's moody sidekick. His strong voice aptly highlight the young painter's temper and he blended beautifully in ensemble numbers. It took me a while to get used to Ms. Gandhi's built-in vocal tremolo (especially in the upper register), but she proved an apt actress both in comical and serious dramatic moments. The yellow costume she wore to Cafe Momus was rather unbecomingly reminding of the San Diego Chicken, but the young singer was such a convincing comic that she had the entire audience laughing with her instead of at her.

Dependable (both vocally and theatrically) Malcolm MacKenzie, Alfred Walker, Scott Sikon and Chad Frisque rounded out the good supporting cast of Schaunard, Colline, Benoit/Alcindoro and Parpignol. Karen Keltner and the San Diego Symphony Orchestra kept the show moving at a brisk and fresh pace, though they were occasionally too loud and covered the low-lying vocal lines of the principal singers (especially Dehn, Gandhi and Walker).

Puccini's La Boheme is a beautiful opera with theatrically tight plot and superbly catchy and gorgeous music that is friendly to even the non-opera audience (if you like Broadway's Rent and the film Moonstruck, you'd love La Boheme!). There are only 3 performances left in the run and tickets are selling like hot potatoes (the first show was pretty close to selling out). If you haven't bought your ticket yet, you've better hurry!

Remaining performances of La Boheme at the San Diego Opera:
January 30 (7PM), February 2 (7PM), 5 (8PM), 7 (2PM).