Broadway Premiere News Articles
Broadway spellbound by Baz's magic
Sydney Morning Herald, 10 December 2002
Baz Luhrmann has the theatrical world at his feet with his new production of La Boheme. It looks and works like a dream, writes Bryce Hallett in New York.
By all counts, Baz Luhrmann's La Boheme, which opened in New York on Sunday night, is a triumph - beautiful, intelligent and ultimately moving.
It is not only a case of La Boheme meets Broadway but Broadway comes to La Boheme such are its musical verve and scenic marvels.
On stage after the curtain came down, Luhrmann looked like a proud father; this the man whose career began modestly in Sydney and who these days clearly has the world at his feet. His company's motto, "A life lived in fear is a life half lived", sums up his uncompromising and determined approach.
There is nothing about Luhrmann to suggest he has ever done anything by halves - certainly not when it comes to mounting a Broadway blockbuster and looking to excite spectators outside the opera-going set.
Opera Australia will get royalties from the Broadway season of La Boheme, a production of which a relatively untried Luhrmann staged at the Sydney Opera House in 1990 and gave ample glimpse of his and designer (and wife) Catherine Martin's flair.
Despite the obvious resources that Bazmark and a consortium of producers, including Jeffrey Seller and Kevin McCollum (the producers of Rent, the pop music reworking of La Boheme), can afford to bring to the show, the production fortunately retains the essential simplicity and storytelling magic that made it so appealing in the first place. However, the Cafe Momus on Christmas Eve scene is so splendidly realised - a coup de theatre - that its ravishing late '50s vogue look and lighted festoon can take your breath away.
In Sydney 1990, as now, much of the production's success - aside from the flowing melodies and lyrical peaks mapped by Puccini - lay in Luhrmann's ability to conjure images to complement rather than cloud a story which, given its quick pace and burst of carnival energy, lends itself to cinematic devices and the transparent magic-making of Brecht.
After the director's ambitious and visually stunning films Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge, La Boheme enables audiences not familiar with his opera work to see how well he can tell a story without excess and hyper-realism. There are, however, flashy touches and a determination to be cool in the eyes of the young crowd, which is understandable, given the inherent commercial risk of producing opera in the heartland of music theatre and drama.
The most obvious concessions to new audiences not educated in the customs of opera include the use of amplification, three rotating principal casts - all young and hip - and surtitles, which could equally be at home in an episode of Sex and the City or, in the rambunctious boy's own scene with Marcello (Ben Davis), Rodolfo (David Miller), Schaunard (Daniel Okulitch) and Colline (Daniel Webb), straight out of Batman.
The purists may not like it but die-hard opera fans are not the audience being sought or needed to keep the venture afloat.
At any rate, the show - featuring superb lighting by Nigel Levings and splendid costumes by Martin and Angus Strathie, works and looks like a dream. The stagecraft is bold and clear, and I can't help but detect a passing nod to Australian directors Neil Armfield and Jim Sharman in the way the transparency of the stage craft adds considerably to the spectacle and illusion. Like the lives of the lovers the story charts, the staging celebrates and grasps the moment. The production is all the more exciting for exposing rather than hiding its seams.
Set in 1957-58 in Paris between two political and social upheavals, the war and the student riots, Luhrmann's interpretation is spellbinding in the way it not only presents intensely heartfelt and characterful moments but never lets the audience forget how the most precious things in life can suddenly be taken away.
Miller has a secure, ringing tenor voice and a strong stage presence while vaguely recalling David Hobson's penniless poet from more than a decade ago. Ekaterina Solovyeva makes a creditable seamstress Mimi and the tragic and romantic ending on the rooftop garret is evoked with genuine feeling and understanding. There are no gimmicks, just pure emotion, and it works all the better for it. Chloe Wright, fetching in luminous red, makes a teasing and tantalising Musetta.
La Boheme deserves to succeed on Broadway and not only because of its visual ingenuity or the inventiveness of Luhrmann.
Puccini, it must be said, has composed a score more memorable and hummable than anything playing on the Great White Way. Most of the much-vaunted musicals on Broadway are Disney cartoons translated to the stage, dance-driven extravaganzas or works harking back to comedy traditions of old, such as Mel Brooks's deliriously entertaining The Producers. But nothing can beat the tunefulness and compelling lyricism of Puccini's score and that is where, for the most part, the director puts his faith.
It would be a mistake to credit the director and not the composer for the quick-flowing story and much of the extrovert and achingly "real" action but there's no denying that "the Baz touch" does wonders in bringing La Boheme to life on stage for new generations.
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'La Boheme' debut in
New York
By Wendy Manwarren, InStyle - Party Hopper, CNN.com
10 December 2002
(InStyle) -- The event: Opening night of "La Boheme," the Broadway production of the 19th-century Italian opera, directed by "Moulin Rouge" creator Baz Luhrmann, in New York December 8.
THE GUEST LIST
Leonardo DiCaprio, Cameron Diaz, Hugh Grant, Sandra Bullock, Marcia Gay Harden, James
Gandolfini, Rita Wilson, Famke Janssen, Katie Couric, Joan Allen, Candice Bergen, Stanley
Tucci, John Turturro, Harvey Keitel, Chris Kattan, Regis Philbin, Caroline Rhea and more.
THE SETTING
The Broadway Theater set the stage for Luhrmann's splashy version of this Giacomo Puccini
tale of love and loss. Most famously known for his colorful takes on the classics like
William Shakespeare's "Romeo & Juliet," Luhrmann upheld his Baz-style,
setting the opera in the 1950s, but "it's the music, it's the story, it's the
Italian. It's just told in such a way that anyone can get it," Luhrmann said. This
was the draw for Baz and opera fan Sandra Bullock. "I was raised in an opera
family," she said, "so I'm interested to see anyone that has a fresh take on
opera that makes it more interesting for the public."
THE BUZZ
Is Broadway ready for Baz? "La Boheme" already received rave reviews from its
October run in San Francisco, and Marcia Gay Harden thinks this is the perfect venue:
"He's full of the unexpected, and that's Broadway."
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Baz's "Bohème"
Brings Down House
By Julie Keller, E! Online
9 December 2002
Baz Luhrmann may have another Moulin Rouge
on his hands.
The reviews are in, and if you believe them, then the guy who wowed critics with a unique, award-winning movie musical has done it again, this time working his magic on Broadway with Puccini's opera La Bohème.
Sung in its original Italian, with a whopping eight performances a week, a full-blown 26-piece orchestra and three rotating casts, many doubted the Aussie director would be able to get the performance off the ground. (Even Luhrman himself said he could be committing "professional suicide" by taking the tragic, musical love story to Broadway.)
But once again, it seems Baz has blown naysayers away, and is already sparking Tony talk.
"Bravo Bohème!" crows the New York Post. "Luhrmann's Bohème ...turns out to be both the coolest and warmest show in town, an enchanted mixture of self-conscious artistry and emotional richness," raves the New York Times.
"This unabashedly exuberant but intricately
wrought staging of Puccini's masterpiece adds a cinematic immediacy to the emotional
intensity that only opera can afford," says Daily Variety. "It succeeds
spectacularly in its ultimate goal--to put the pop back in opera--and a lusty critical
reception might just help turn a century-old operatic warhorse into Broadway's next hot
ticket."
The eye-popping opera bowed Sunday at Manhattan's Broadway Theater to a house packed with
celebrity theatergoers, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Sandra Bullock and Marcia Gay Harden.
And it wasn't just the critics who were enthralled. Hollywood types also hyped La Bohème
.
"This is extraordinary," raved Rita Wilson. "They'll be talking about this
for the next five years."
Puccini's original opera told a tale of the tragic love affair between the seamstress Mimi
and the poet Rodolfo set against the world of 19th century bohemian Paris.
Luhrmann tweaked the setting, relocating the show to post-war Paris circa 1957. Baz's
Bohème, with a vibrant, colorful set designed by his Oscar-winning wife, Catherine
Martin, features a rotating cast of lead characters to avoid straining the stars' voices.
But the critics don't seem to be bothered by any of his changes.
"All six were really good, promising singers and all acted most persuasively,"
says the Post about the three Rodolfos and three Mimi's.
"The opera has found a perfect mate in Baz Luhrmann, an artist who seems destined for
an enduring career ranging across who-knows-how-many forms of media, but one who, I
suspect, will forever remain a starry-eyed youth at heart," says Daily Variety.
The blockbuster reviews shouldn't bee too surprising for Luhrmann. This isn't the first
time the Moulin Rouge mastermind tackled Puccini's classic tale. His initial staging of La
Bohème opened Down Under in 1990 to rave reviews and went on to become the biggest hit in
Sydney Opera House history. It was staged again to packed houses in 1993 and again in
1996, when it was recorded for video. He was tapped by the producers of Rent to bring it
to Broadway two years ago and has since been hard at work prepping the production.
It seems all of his hard work has most definitely paid off. La Bohème is drawing Tony
buzz and has already presold more than $3 million in tickets.
And those stellar reviews are likely to boost sales even higher.
As the New York Daily News reviewer says, "I guarantee you'll go out humming the
tunes."
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Baz
Luhrmann's exuberant, young 'La Boheme' arrives
By Michael Kuchwara, Tuscaloosa News
9 December 2002
NEW YORK | When Rodolfo wears a white T-shirt plus a black leather jacket and Mimi looks as if she has just stepped out of the pages of Vogue, circa 1957, you know you’re not at your grandparents’ -- or even your parents’ -- "La Boheme."
You’re in the Land of Baz, meaning an astonishing, eminently theatrical environment created by Australian film and stage director Baz Luhrmann for his young, exuberant and meltingly romantic version of the Puccini opera.
For those charmed ó or appalled ó by the excesses of Luhrmann’s movie musical "Moulin Rouge," his stage "La Boheme," which opened Sunday at the Broadway Theatre, will seem pretty straightforward and surprisingly clear. Purists may quibble about the amplification, but, for the most part, it’s discreet, and the director has paid careful attention to the story and score, even if the orchestra is reduced.
True, this tale of poor yet pleasure-loving bohemians is now set in mid-20th century Paris, instead of the 1830s, but the opera is sung in the original Italian with sometimes funny English subtitles projected above, below and at the sides of the stage.
If such words, names or phrases as "bebop," "Daddy-O," "Marlon Brando" and "going all the way" were not exactly in the original libretto by Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica, these modernisms certainly lend a populist feel to the story. "La Boheme" was meant for the masses, and Luhrmann has reiterated that point with this accessible production.
By now, the minimal plot is more than well-known: Poverty-stricken/spoet meets lonely seamstress with severe health problems and no major medical. Jealousy flares, but true love triumphs again just before she expires. In-between, they visit the Cafe Momus where the painter Marcello is bewitched by the flirtatious Musetta.
Luhrmann and his design team have brought a cinematic sense of style and scale to the vast stage of the theater, one of Broadway’s largest. And his performers, fresh, frisky and undeniably sexy, move with an ease that more mature, full-figured singers could never even attempt.
Because of the grueling vocal demands and eight shows each week, there are three sets of leads, each playing different performances. Having seen all three, this critic found the most accomplished to be Russian soprano Ekaterina Solovyeva and American David Miller. Their acting has an intensity that matches their singing. The dramatic Solovyeva makes the most of Mimi’s death scene, and Miller heartbreakingly captures a boyish fellow suddenly turned grown-up in grief.
The Rodolfo of Jesus Garcia (sporting Elvis sideburns and a James Dean swagger) is a nice match for the Mimi of a stylish Lisa Hopkins (who projects 1950s chic even in a barren garret). As the third set of lovers, Alfred Boe and Wei Huang radiate an even more youthful giddiness than the others ó but at the expense of some emotional depth. Their big moment on a snow-covered cobblestone street ends in a playful snow scuffle rather than a passionate kiss.
The production revels in its artifice. It has four acts but only one intermission and part of the fun is watching the stagehands do their work during the lengthy scene changes. Particularly entrancing is the transformation of that rooftop artists’ hovel into a lively street scene complete with roller-skating children, streetwalkers, nuns, a dwarf, a grand dame or two and a marching band.
This is no quick-change. Production designer Catherine Martin, who is Luhrmann’s wife, allows the street setting to lumber into view and the cast to materialize one by one. Some of the principal performers are even accompanied by makeup artists who dab and primp the actors until a headset-wearing stage manager gives the cue to begin. Suddenly the stage is alive with lights and crowds.
The cafe scene gives a second pair of lovers, Marcello and Musetta, who is done up by Martin in a glamorous red party dress, a chance to shine. There are two sets of secondary leads, with top honors going to the gruff heartiness of Eugene Brancoveanu’s Marcello and the seductive, saucy Musetta of Jessica Comeau.
If anyone misses the point about the subject matter of "La Boheme," Luhrmann positions a large, red neon sign, consisting of the word
"L'amour," outside Rodolfo’s attic apartment.
"It’s better to burn bright and die young!" sings a trio of confident youngsters at the hopeful beginning of the opera. "La Boheme," in this enthusiastic interpretation by Luhrmann and company, blazes with a blinding light that rarely flickers all evening long.
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'La Boheme' Opens With Hollywood Glitz
By Justin Glanville, AP Online
9 December 2002
NEW YORK (AP)--Sandra Bullock in a slinky black evening gown, edging past paparazzi. A throng of onlookers waiting in vain for the arrival of Leonardo DiCaprio (he sneaked in through a side entrance). Candice Bergen holding court with friends and fans in the lobby.
It wasn't a typical night at the opera.
But this wasn't just any opera: It was Baz Luhrmann's production of "La Boheme,'' the Puccini classic about young artists living and loving in the garrets above Paris.
Luhrmann is best known for directing fast-paced, eye-catching movies such as
"Moulin Rouge'' and ``Romeo + Juliet.'' His Hollywood friends turned out in force for the opening of
"Boheme'' Sunday night on Broadway.
"I have no idea what to expect,'' said Marcia Gay Harden, Oscar winner for
"Pollock,'' as she arrived. ``That's the amazing thing about his work--expect the unexpected.''
Luhrmann has a reputation for visual extravagance, and most attendees predicted they would be wowed by the show's design.
"I'm sure it'll be colorful, a real feast for the eyes,'' said John Turturro, flashing his toothy grin for photographers.
Luhrmann himself arrived just before curtain with his wife, Catherine Martin, who designed the show's sets and co-designed its costumes.
"I'm nervous, but it's exciting,'' said Luhrmann, looking stylishly unkempt in a partially unbuttoned ruffled shirt and black coat.
"Tonight, I just want to commit to enjoying myself.''
Some of the show's lead players had Sunday night off. "La Boheme'' is cast with three separate sets of leads who rotate into the show, sharing the vocal workload. David Miller and Ekaterina Solovyeva performed Rudolfo and Mimi on opening night.
"This is the first time I've had a chance to see the show all the way through,'' said Alfred Boe, one of the other Rudolfos.
Wei Huang, a Mimi who plays opposite Boe, said it would be hard to sit still.
"I'm sure I'll want to jump up and start singing,'' she said with a smile.
"But I can't wait to see it.''
During the performance, the celebrity-studded audience shouted its approval after every scene, gasping at the 1950s-styled sets.
During the first scene change, actress Rita Wilson ("Auto Focus'') whispered excitedly to a friend seated next to her in the third row.
"This is extraordinary! They'll be talking about this for the next five years,'' she said.
By the time the final curtain went down, to riotous applause, her enthusiasm hadn't waned.
"I don't think I've ever seen anything so well-received,'' she said.
"It reminds me of the first time I saw 'Les Miserables'--it's that revolutionary.''
No one knew quite what to expect of the singing in Luhrmann's "Boheme.'' The opera is usually sung by seasoned performers in their 40s or 50s, but Luhrmann cast his production with singers in their 20s to match the ages of Puccini's characters.
Audience members reported being as impressed with the show's performances as they were by its visuals.
"The design of the show was wonderful, but I thought the voices were exceptional too,'' said theater actress Jennifer Prescott as she filed out of the Broadway Theatre.
Jeffrey Seller, one of the show's producers, breathed a sigh of relief outside as the last few audience members straggled off to the after-party.
He said the show has grown tremendously since its tryout in San Francisco this fall.
"The performances are richer and deeper,'' he said. "There was a moment in the first act, when Mimi and Rudolfo are first meeting, when I saw this twinkle in their eyes. It was the look of two young people falling in love.
"Right then, I knew we had a winner.''
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Baz takes the plunge with La Boheme
Sydney Morning Herald, 9 December 2002
New York: Baz Luhrmann took the Broadway plunge in New York today, a year after he transformed movie-making in Hollywood with Moulin Rouge.
The Australian director's version of Puccini's opera, La Boheme, officially opened at the Broadway Theatre tonight after a week of previews.
And the New York critics are already applauding.
"Go Luhrmann," the usually conservative New York Times crowed in today's edition.
Tonight's official opening followed a typical razzamatazz Luhrmann-styled media and promotional blitz in the Big Apple.
TV ads, directed by Luhrmann, looked more like promos for a big budget Hollywood movie than for a Broadway production.
And taking another cue from the Hollywood publicity machine, Luhrmann invited more than 100 journalists from around the world last month for a press conference and interviews.
The stakes are high for the 40-year-old Luhrmann and La Boheme producers Kevin McCollum and Jeffrey Seller, who were behind the highly-successful Broadway musical, Rent.
About $US6.5 million ($A11.6 million) has been poured into La Boheme and while early ticket sales have been strong, a question mark remains over whether audiences will continue to fill the theatre after the media blitz dies down.
There are also questions over whether the masses are interested in paying up to $US90 ($A160.50) a ticket for an opera on Broadway sung in Italian.
"Look, there are easier ways and quicker ways to have a hit on Broadway than doing Italian opera in the original language ... it's an extraordinarily risky venture," Luhrmann told The Washington Post.
Luhrmann only has to look back to 1998 when Matthew Bourne attempted to bring ballet to Broadway.
A media blitz and great reviews accompanied the launch of Bourne's Swan Lake but the show closed after just 124 performances.
Luhrmann's La Boheme also faces a wealth of competition with six other productions opening on Broadway this month, including Our Town, starring Paul Newman, and the grand musical, Dance of the Vampires, starring Michael Crawford.
Luhrmann has a few promotional tricks up his sleeve.
The first two rows for each performance will go on sale at the theatre box office the day of the show for only $US20 ($A35.65), a big discount on the $US90 ($A160.50) it costs for the third row seats.
With long lines expected, Luhrmann has organised entertainment not only for La Boheme fans but also for the crowds that line up each day for the Dave Letterman TV talkshow, which is taped at a theatre next door.
"Dave being the great lover of music that he is, and because his crowd lines up next to our crowd, we're going to send opera singers out there to entertain both lines," Luhrmann told the New York Daily News.
"After all, Dave is the Pavarotti of night time TV."
But the key to La Boheme's success could be the reviews from critics.
If the initial critical response continues, Luhrmann will likely have a few Tony awards to sit beside the two Oscars Moulin Rouge won in March.
"Opera buffs refer to Aida, Boheme and Carmen as the ABC's of opera," the New York Times wrote today.
"In their Broadway incursions, the first failed, the third was a hit. It doesn't seem too much to hope that it will be two out of three - in favour of opera."
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'La Boheme' Opens at Broadway Theatre
By Ronald Blum, AP Online
9 December 2002
NEW YORK (AP)--Baz Luhrmann's new production of Puccini's ``La Boheme'' should be required viewing for all opera impresarios.
The staging, which opened Sunday at the Broadway Theatre, displays what is missing many nights from the world's great opera houses: a well-rehearsed ensemble that looks the part, acting and singing with style, vigor and commitment.
It is by no means a defining rendition--the use of amplification is jarring, the undersized orchestra is lacking at key moments and conductor Constantine Kitsopoulos rushes through the score as if he has to catch a train. Yet it is far more convincing and enjoyable than what passes for ``La Boheme'' on opera stages most nights.
Luhrmann's goal was to reinvigorate Puccini's story of the love between the poet Rodolfo and seamstress Mimi in the garrets of Paris, perhaps the most popular opera ever written.
Because it is a staple of repertory houses, where it often sells out no matter the cast, singers are expected to know their roles coming in and often are sent on stage with only a rehearsal or two, sometimes none at all. It is not unheard of for a Rodolfo to jet in from a Verdi performance in Europe and meet his Mimi for the first time during the opening act, and on occasion the pair look more like sumo wrestlers than youthful lovers.
And because opera houses usually value voices above all, Rodolfo and Mimi can be closer to Social Security pensioners than 20-something bohemians. That isn't necessarily fatal--the most beautiful rendition heard in New York in recent years was when Mirella Freni and Luciano Pavarotti, both 52 at the time, sang five unforgettable performances with conductor Carlos Kleiber at the Metropolitan Opera in 1988.
But for believability, Luhrmann's production is hard to beat. Its update to 1957 wasn't jarring--Mimi was dressed stylishly, and subtitles were altered to change a carriage to a Rolls-Royce and drop in a reference to Dior. Having the titles in different sizes and fonts is something opera houses should take note of, along with having them above, below and on the sides of the set.
Soprano Ekaterina Solovyeva and tenor David Miller, one of three pairs of leads, gave a performance Friday night that had some in the audience dabbing tears from their eyes. For once, Mimi is beautiful and Rodolfo handsome.
The primary singers are conservatory veterans, and their voices generally are up to the task, although Solovyeva sounded a tad sharp at times. Eugene Brancouveanu (Marcello) and Jessica Comeau (Musetta) also sang as good as they looked.
Because of the use of amplification, the sound seemed to be coming from the wrong place when the singers weren't stage center. But by using mikes, the singers don't have to always face the audience and they don't strain to hit high notes.
Catherine Martin's sets were as lavish as any Franco Zeffirelli has produced--especially the neon-filled Latin Quarter--and the smaller size of a Broadway stage seemed more appropriate than some gargantuan versions at opera houses.
But the 28-piece orchestra, down from about 80 in most opera pits, was insufficient. Without the full complement of strings, the horns had too much emphasis during soaring passages, leaving a tinny sound.
Enough with the quibbles. In totality, it was an evening most operagoers would find worthwhile. Perhaps the producers will adopt the opera practice of listing the casts in advance, allowing patrons to choose and compare.
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Baz takes the Broadway plunge
The Age, 9 December 2002
Baz Luhrmann has taken the Broadway plunge in New York, a year after he transformed movie-making in Hollywood with Moulin Rouge.
The Australian director's version of Puccini's opera, La Boheme, officially opened at the Broadway Theatre tonight after a week of previews.
And the New York critics are already applauding.
"Go Luhrmann," the usually conservative New York Times crowed.
The official opening followed a typical razzamatazz Luhrmann-styled media and promotional blitz in the Big Apple.
TV ads, directed by Luhrmann, looked more like promos for a big budget Hollywood movie than for a Broadway production.
And taking another cue from the Hollywood publicity machine, Luhrmann invited more than 100 journalists from around the world last month for a press conference and interviews.
The stakes are high for the 40-year-old Luhrmann and La Boheme producers Kevin McCollum and Jeffrey Seller, who were behind the highly-successful Broadway musical, Rent.
About $US6.5 million ($A11.6 million) has been poured into La Boheme and while early ticket sales have been strong, a question mark remains over whether audiences will continue to fill the theatre after the media blitz dies down.
There are also questions over whether the masses are interested in paying up to $US90 ($A160.50) a ticket for an opera on Broadway sung in
Italian.
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Review of "La Boheme" in New York
By Hedy Weiss, Chicago Sun Times
9 December 2002
NEW YORK--One of the giant billboards that now stands watch over Times Square asks the surprisingly high culture question: "Have you seen the Mets?," suggesting that tourists and natives alike should explore--no, not the baseball team at Shea Stadium--but the treasures of both the Metropolitan Opera House and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
What the sign doesn't mention is that these days, you don't have to head to the opera house to see an opera. "La Boheme," Puccini's endlessly popular tragedy of young love and struggling artists, is now on Broadway in a production clearly aimed at the youth audience and the movie crowd--especially those who are familiar with the work of director Baz Luhrmann and his wife, Academy Award-winning designer Catherine Martin, who have collaborated on films such as "Moulin Rouge, "Romeo + Juliet" and "Strictly Ballroom."
Never mind that Jonathan Larsen's "Rent" already successfully captured the youth audience with its 1990s rock version of the story set in New York's East Village, or that opera fans can see the genuine Puccini work in some form or another nearly every season. Luhrmann wants to return opera to its pop roots--an entertainment that crosses all social classes. And the way to do that, he believes, is to head to Broadway, just as such complex, groundbreaking Broadway musicals as Stephen Sondheim's "Sweeney Todd" (now at Lyric Opera of Chicago) are going in the opposite direction.
The production of "La Boheme" that opened Sunday night at the elegant Broadway Theatre in New York, is an odd amalgam of things--neither fish nor fowl.
It is performed in Italian by young, attractive opera singers drawn from an international pool, all of whom are visually believable in the roles they play. Yet despite the fact that the theater is far smaller than the average opera house, their voices are amplified. And because Broadway requires eight performances per week for what might be a long run (rather than the carefully limited schedule of performances at opera houses with rotating repertory), three casts of principals have been assembled. As for ticket prices, they are only slightly lower than for premium seats at the opera.
But what about the director's decision to update the setting from the original Paris of the 1830s to that of the late 1950s? And what about those oh-so-hip and obvious and very free-form translations in the supertitles--lines like "Listen up cats; I've just cleaned out the Bank of France," or "Let's split to the Momus [Cafe]? Or the references to Marlon Brando and "The Wild One"? (Well, they are just too cute, even as overlays on the uncorrupted lyrics that are sung in the original Italian.)
And the truth is, not only have opera directors been doing this kind of thing for decades now, but increasingly they've also been seeking out physically appropriate singers who can move and act convincingly, even if vocal prowess does remain an opera house priority.
So what's the big deal? Let's just say that marketing is the key here. (It should be noted that Luhrmann first conceived this production in 1990, as a project for the Australian Opera, and that this is a revision of that earlier, similarly youth-infused version.)
Not surprisingly, this "La Boheme" is physically gorgeous--a sort of black-and-white photo album of old Paris that feeds on the architectural photos of master photographer Eugene Atget, but also has the same sort of storybook charm as "Amelie" in its depiction of life in the fabled artists' district of Montmartre. In fact, the whole production often seems to be a film set, as Martin's sets are moved quite visibly (and at times clumsily) by stagehands, as hand-held lamps focus light on various "shots," and as the actors do little character preparations and get quick makeup touchups as they stroll around the stage before each scene.
Wrought iron balconies extend into the theater space. An old claw-footed bathtub doubles as a table for the starving artists. Cafe, hotel and theater signs light up the night sky. And often, thanks to Nigel Levings' superb lighting, a gray, wintry dreariness permeates the air, making ill-heated lofts, ratty apartments and a border-crossing very likely breeding places of tuberculosis. Working with Angus Strathie, Martin has outfitted the actors in everything from thrift-store pieces to a Belmondo-style trenchcoat (for Mimi) to the new postwar Dior deluxe dresses (for Musetta).
The cast I saw was highly watchable, with appealing voices that may not quite have been at a level of Met or Lyric grandeur, but were top-notch nevertheless. As the penniless poet, Rodolfo, the young, blond, American-bred David Miller is most impressive--with a velvety voice and an easy physicality. He and his delicate blond girlfriend, Mimi, Russian singer Ekaterina Solovyeva, looked lovely together, although he is both the better singer and actor. Ben Davis, also American bred, has several strong scenes as the painter, Marcello (whose action paintings suggest the work of Jackson Pollock), both with his friend, Rodolfo, and with his free-spirited girlfriend, Musetta, played with voluptuous flair and Rita Hayworth presence by English-bred Chloe Wright. And there was especially outstanding work by Daniel Webb as the exuberant, soft-hearted philosopher Colline, whose farewell to his overcoat was the best love song of the evening.
In the end, the visual delights of this production outweigh its aural pleasures, and the crucial emotional heat that comes with big operatic voices is lacking. This "La Boheme" may be the equivalent of a good set of training wheels for the MTV-educated audience. But serious opera fans will still want to head to the opera house. As for me, I'm waiting for a grunge-band version of "Woyzeck."
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'La Boheme' Arrives on Broadway
By Michael Kuchwara, Washington Post
AP Drama Critic
8 December 2002
NEW YORK –– When Rodolfo wears a white T-shirt plus a black leather jacket and Mimi looks as if she has just stepped out of the pages of Vogue, circa 1957, you know you're not at your grandparents' – or even your parents' – "La Boheme."
You're in the Land of Baz, meaning an astonishing, eminently theatrical environment created by Australian film and stage director Baz Luhrmann for his young, exuberant and meltingly romantic version of the Puccini opera.
For those charmed – or appalled – by the excesses of Luhrmann's movie musical "Moulin Rouge," his stage "La Boheme," which opened Sunday at the Broadway Theatre, will seem pretty straightforward and surprisingly clear. Purists may quibble about the amplification, but, for the most part, it's discreet, and the director has paid careful attention to the story and score, even if the orchestra is reduced.
True, this tale of poor yet pleasure-loving bohemians is now set in mid-20th century Paris, instead of the 1830s, but the opera is sung in the original Italian with sometimes funny English subtitles projected above, below and at the sides of the stage.
If such words, names or phrases as "bebop,'' "Daddy-O," "Marlon Brando" and "going all the way" were not exactly in the original libretto by Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica, these modernisms certainly lend a populist feel to the story. "La Boheme" was meant for the masses, and Luhrmann has reiterated that point with this accessible production.
By now, the minimal plot is more than well-known: Poverty-stricken poet meets lonely seamstress with severe health problems and no major medical. Jealousy flares, but true love triumphs again just before she expires. In-between, they visit the Cafe Momus where the painter Marcello is bewitched by the flirtatious Musetta.
Luhrmann and his design team have brought a cinematic sense of style and scale to the vast stage of the theater, one of Broadway's largest. And his performers, fresh, frisky and undeniably sexy, move with an ease that more mature, full-figured singers could never even attempt.
Because of the grueling vocal demands and eight shows each week, there are three sets of leads, each playing different performances. Having seen all three, this critic found the most accomplished to be Russian soprano Ekaterina Solovyeva and American David Miller. Their acting has an intensity that matches their singing. The dramatic Solovyeva makes the most of Mimi's death scene, and Miller heartbreakingly captures a boyish fellow suddenly turned grown-up in grief.
The Rodolfo of Jesus Garcia (sporting Elvis sideburns and a James Dean swagger) is a nice match for the Mimi of a stylish Lisa Hopkins (who projects 1950s chic even in a barren garret). As the third set of lovers, Alfred Boe and Wei Huang radiate an even more youthful giddiness than the others – but at the expense of some emotional depth. Their big moment on a snow-covered cobblestone street ends in a playful snow scuffle rather than a passionate kiss.
The production revels in its artifice. It has four acts but only one intermission and part of the fun is watching the stagehands do their work during the lengthy scene changes. Particularly entrancing is the transformation of that rooftop artists' hovel into a lively street scene complete with roller-skating children, streetwalkers, nuns, a dwarf, a grand dame or two and a marching band.
This is no quick-change. Production designer Catherine Martin, who is Luhrmann's wife, allows the street setting to lumber into view and the cast to materialize one by one. Some of the principal performers are even accompanied by makeup artists who dab and primp the actors until a headset-wearing stage manager gives the cue to begin. Suddenly the stage is alive with lights and crowds.
The cafe scene gives a second pair of lovers, Marcello and Musetta, who is done up by Martin in a glamorous red party dress, a chance to shine. There are two sets of secondary leads, with top honors going to the gruff heartiness of Eugene Brancoveanu's Marcello and the seductive, saucy Musetta of Jessica Comeau.
If anyone misses the point about the subject matter of "La Boheme," Luhrmann positions a large, red neon sign, consisting of the word 'L'amour," outside Rodolfo's attic apartment.
"It's better to burn bright and die young!" sings a trio of confident youngsters at the hopeful beginning of the opera. "La Boheme," in this enthusiastic interpretation by Luhrmann and company, blazes with a blinding light that rarely flickers all evening long.
________________________________
Luhrmann's
La Boheme Waltzes Onto the Broadway Stage, Dec. 8
By Kenneth Jones, Playbill.com
8 December 2002
Director Baz Luhrmann invited movie audiences in
2001 to think in a new visual language for his picture, "Moulin Rouge." Now, if
the gasps of previews audiences at La Bohème are any indication, his new staging of the
Puccini opera for Broadway, opening Dec. 8 at the Broadway Theatre, will keep people
talking for a long time.
Reveling in a theatricality that some are saying hasn't been seen since the potent work of
Harold Prince in the 1970s, Luhrmann freely shows stage hands and stage managers, props
and effects-machines - the mechanics of the event behind the rich, classic romance that
has been a sensation on opera houses for generations. Luhrmann's goal is to rediscover the
story using young, lean performers, placing them in a world that, if not as mammoth and
opulent as what can be seen at the cavernous Metropolitan Opera, is still visually
arresting. The Paris Latin Quarter section of the show (Act II) has had audiences gasping
and applauding for the monochromatic, neon-punctuated work of designer Catherine Martin.
The opera, the creative team seems to be saying, will do the rest of the work.
From the three rotating casts for Mimi and Rodolfo and the two pairs of lovers for
Marcello and Musetta, the opening night will feature American tenor David Miller and
Russian soprano Ekaterina Solovyeva as Mimi and Rodolfo and American Ben Davis and British
Chlöe Wright as Marcello and Musetta. The producers are said to be petitioning the Tony
Awards committee to have all of their principals available for nominations. Performances
for the Tony voters to view the casts will be made available to nominators, if and when it
comes to that.
*
The Nov. 29 first preview of Baz Luhrmann's staging of La Bohème represents new territory
for musical theatre: A major commitment from major producers to produce a major
Italian-language opera on Broadway.
It helps that the title is a brand name like Puccini's La Bohème, arguably the
most-produced opera in the history of the world. It also helps that this production, when
it was first seen in a staging by the Australian Opera in 1990, was a sensation Down
Under. Set in Paris of 1957 with comely young sopranos and tenors, it was revived twice in
the 1990s, and now director Baz Luhrmann and designer Catherine Martin return to shepherd
the American debut, complete with English surtitles.
Of course La Bohème is a risk for producers Jeffrey Seller, Kevin McCollum and Emanuel
Azenberg, but Seller (who, with McCollum, guided Rent to Broadway) suggests it's not worth
doing if there's no risk.
"I'm scared out of my mind," Seller told Playbill On-Line. "But I don't
think that Kevin and I are really interested in producing anything in New York City that
doesn't break the rules, turn convention upside-down on its head and make us feel like we
could be on the brink of utter catastrophe."
Considering San Francisco critics raved about the show in its pre-New York tryout Oct.
1-Nov. 10 at the Curran Theatre, where the show was largely sold out, the brink of
"utter catastrophe" seems unlikely. Still, the unknown territory aspect of the
production (the thing is in Italian, after all) is being closely watched by industry folk.
Seller and McCollum's risky past productions of Rent (the Jonathan Larson rock opera
inspired by La Bohème) and De La Guarda have paid off with international success. Their
hope back in 1995, when they first approached Luhrmann about a U.S. staging of La Bohème,
was to see both Rent and Bohème playing in New York City at the same time. The latter
continues its smash run on 41st Street, at the Nederlander, while Bohème settles into the
Broadway Theatre at 53rd Street and Broadway.
What's different about the Broadway staging compared to the Aussie staging of the Luhrmann
conception is the triple casting of the principal lovers — seamstress Mimi and poet
Rodolfo. The triple cast (and double casting for Musetta and Marcello) is due to the vocal
demands of the eight-show-a-week schedule; opera companies usually offer works in rotating
rep, with less than eight shows a week. As in Australia, all the principals are young,
sexy and attractive. The 10 rotating on Broadway come from various parts of the globe.
The first Broadway performance Nov. 29 featured Wei Huang of China as Mimi, Alfred Boe of
the U.K. as Rodolfo, American Ben Davis as Marcello and Britain's Chlöe Wright as
Musetta.
Also paired up in rep are Russian soprano Ekaterina Solovyeva and American tenor David
Miller, and American soprano Lisa Hopkins and American tenor Jesús Garcia. Canadian
Jessica Comeau and Romanian Eugene Brancoveanu also play Musetta and Marcello,
respectively.
In theory, the Rodolfos and Mimis who rehearsed as couples will stay paired and play no
more than three shows a week; and the Marcellos and Musettas won't play more than four
shows per week. Sickness, delays and other circumstances could change that, but members of
the principal acting company said they welcomed such an energy-sparking shakeup.
A spokesman for the show said once previews and critics performances have passed and the
regular run has begun (after Dec. 8), a performance schedule will be posted one month in
advance at the box office, on the www.BohemeonBroadway.com website and with phone sales
agents in the event ticketbuyers want to see a specific performer. That performance
schedule, as noted above, is subject to change.
*
Critics are invited to see all three of the rotating casts of Broadway's La Bohème, a
spokesman confirmed, but that doesn't necessarily mean all reviewers consecutively
digested triple doses of Baz Luhrmann's rich theatrical cafe au lait in the past week.
The way newspapers and critics approach the show is ultimately up to them, a La Bohème
spokesman told Playbill On-Line, though "we're inviting them to see all three
casts." Whether critics squeezed three viewings — totaling about eight hours
— into one week leading toward the Dec. 8 opening is questionable, but return trips
are likely, leading to potential expanded exposure.
Considering the unique New York Times approach to the dance-heavy Broadway musical, Movin'
Out (side-by-side reviews by Times theatre and dance critics), it seems likely that the
most powerful paper in town will offer its readers reviews of Bohème by its theatre and
opera critics.
Opening night is the performance that traditionally determines Tony Award eligibility.
(The Tony committee has been flexible in the past: Alice Ripley and Emily Skinner, playing
conjoined twins in Side Show, were dubbed one actress and both nommed together as Best
Actress in 1998; the singular Natasha Richardson won the prize).
Joining the six previously-announced international leads are Daniel Webb as philosopher
Colline, Daniel Okulitch as musician Schaunard, William Youmans as Musetta's Alcindoro and
Adam Grupper as landlord Benoit. The ensemble of La Bohème comprises Enrique Abdala,
Christine Arand, Janinah Burnett, Gilles Chiasson, Charlotte Cohn, Michael Cone, Vanessa
Conlin, Sean Cooper (as Customs Officer), Patricia Corbett, Evangelia Costantakos,
Lawrence Craig, Dan Entriken (as Parpignol, a toy seller), Graham Fandrei (as the
Sergeant), Bobby Faust, Katie Geissinger, Jennifer Goode, Paul Goodwin Groen, Joy
Hermalyn, Robb Hillman, Adam Hunter, Tim Jerome, Katherine Keyes, Laurice Lanier, Morgan
Moody Marcus Nance, Daniel Neer, Debra Patchell, Patricia Phillips, Jamet Pittman, Martín
Solá, Radu Spinghel and Mark Womack. The production also features a children's chorus of
15.
*
The American premiere of Baz Luhrmann's production of La Bohème ended its tryout run at
San Francisco's Curran Theatre Nov. 10 on a high note, and not just Puccini's.
The Curran run of the classic opera was sold out three days after it earned enthusiastic
reviews there, and sold about $300,000 in tickets the day the reviews appeared.
No advance box office figures are available to the press for the Broadway run.
The 1896 opera is being re-set from early 19th-century Paris to the Paris of 1957. A
67-minute "highlights" cast album — featuring all principals handling
various sections of the opera — was recorded in California for Dreamworks. It's
expected in stores Dec. 10.
The Broadway staging's producers are Jeffrey Seller, Kevin McCollum, Emanuel Azenberg and
Bazmark Live, with Bob and Harvey Weinstein, Korea Pictures/Doyun Seol, J. Stine/I.
Pittelman/S. Nederlander and Fox Searchlight Pictures.
Musical director Constantine Kitsopoulos conducts the 28-piece orchestra, which includes
two electronic keyboard players, sweetening the orchestra. The company does indeed perform
with body mikes. The opera has a legendary score by Giacomo Puccini — even those who
avoid opera will recognize "Musetta's Waltz," if only from its interpolations in
movies. Reviews were not good 100 years ago, but the score outlived the critics.
Luhrmann's La Bohème premiered in 1990, and became the biggest hit in the history of the
Sydney Opera House and a sold-out sensation. It played return engagements at the Sydney
Opera House in 1993, when it was recorded for video, and in 1996.
*
The design staff includes "Moulin Rouge" Academy Award winners Catherine Martin
(scenic design and co-costume design) and Angus Strathie (co-costume design), with Nigel
Levings (lighting design) and Acme Sound Partners (sound design).
Onetime actor Luhrmann is internationally known for directing the films "Strictly
Ballroom" (which he began as a play), "Romeo + Juliet" and the Academy
Award nominated "Moulin Rouge." He has worked in film, opera, theatre, music and
events management. With Martin he is the founder and director of Bazmark. In 1988, he
created the critically acclaimed opera, Lake Lost, with composer Felix Meagher, where he
first collaborated with designer Catherine Martin.
The director and designer, married off-stage, seek to capture the romantic haze of Paris
in the 1950s — the same gray world captured by the lens of photographer Robert
Doisneau, whose subjects kissed rapturously on Paris streets.
"It's a monchromatic, Doisneau world, with the bohemians, their characters, in
color," Luhrmann told Playbill On-Line. "They are colorful because they see life
in a romantic way. When we did that in 1990, the color was acrid and very '80s. It was
very garish, which was totally right. In the [late] '80s we were all into the brashness of
color. This production, while we use the same device, those colors are a little more
somber."
The four-act opera is offered with one intermission and two scene changes. The conceit of
the staging has stage crew making scene changes in full view of the audience. The actors
appear under a contract with AGMA (The American Guild of Musical Artists) rather than
Actors' Equity Association, the usual union for Broadway performers.
Why is this production set in 1957?
"For all the talk that this is another wacky Baz Luhrmann groovy show, all decisions
are based on revelation of character, revelation of plot," Luhrmann said. "We
wanted to make it as much like the experience Puccini's audience would have had in the
1890s. A lot of the humor [back then] had to do with an understanding of the characters
— what a bohemian of the 1840s was. The 1840s bohemian basically got around in large,
velvet, floppy hats and checked pants and beards like ZZ Top. It might be difficult and an
unnecessary burden to decode for a contemporary audience what that is, so we wanted to
see: Could we re-set it in a bohemia that could be more accessible?"
Luhrmann said it helped that Catherine Martin's father is a professor of French history
and that her mother is French.
"We spent a lot of time in Paris, living the bohemian life and researching all
different periods of bohemia, and found that '57 was a good social-economic match [with
the 1840s bohemian life]," Luhrmann said. "And indeed, the bohemian of the 1840s
was [living in a] post-war time . Louis Philippe was a boring king but a good one, and so
the bourgeoisie flourished. Their kids were rebelling without cause: There were
non-politicized bohemians. And '57 was a time again when you had this sort of non
politicized bohemia."
And what of the sickness of Mimi in 1957? Is she tubercular?
"[1957] was also the year in which broad inoculation for tuberculosis took
place," Luhrmann said. "Clearly, this being a primary plot point, there has to
be a reasonable amount of credibility that [Mimi] died from tuberculosis. For those
reasons, '57 became our year. It wasn't like, 'Gee, don't people look great in leather
jackets?' Much as they do look good, it's not my favorite visual period, the '50s. My
favorite things are irrelevant to me. My taste is irrelevant. It's about decoding the work
and revealing the power of that to the audience."
For La Bohème ticket (ranging from $20 same day tickets in the first two rows) to a $95
top, call (212) 239-6200.
________________________________
Talkin' Broadways Broadway
Reviews - La Boheme
By Matthew Murray, TalkinBroadway.com
8 December 2002
If Baz Luhrmann understands one thing, it's style. His three
well known film efforts - Strictly Ballroom, Romeo + Juliet, and Moulin Rouge! - are
bursting at the seams with it. Their frenetic storytelling and unapologetic use of film
editing techniques have made them among the most distinct film offerings of the last
decade or so.
But how does Luhrmann fare as a stage director? Devotees of both theatre and opera can see
for themselves with the premiere of Luhrmann's production of one of Giacomo Puccini's most
celebrated and performed operas, La Boheme, which just opened at the Broadway Theatre.
Luhrmann's inescapably imaginative vision is contained in every set, every motion, every
sung word, yet something is missing. This passionate love story lacks nothing Luhrmann
could have given, yet doesn't possess all it needs.
Luhrmann has reset the opera from 1830s Paris to 1957 Paris, changing the color of the
original setting without dampening it. There's still the starving poet Rodolfo in love
with the tuberculosis-stricken Mimi (looking more than a little like Nicole Kidman's
Satine from Moulin Rouge!), and Rodolfo's painter friend Marcello (now apparently obsessed
with modern art) and his on-again-off-again girlfriend Musetta. As conceived by Luhrmann,
these are highly sexual, modern young men and women, at once of another time and the
present - their struggles with love, loss, and death can (and do) happen to anyone.
Luhrmann's devotion to them is admirable, but his production lacks the stratospheric
grandeur necessary to make their everyday problems of paramount importance to us. The
closest his production gets is the opera's second act, set on the left bank's Café Momus,
providing a playfully celebratory crowd scene as brimming with more life and energy than
you're likely to find in other Broadway theaters today. But that act is less about the
most primal, immediate of emotions on which the other three acts focus. Luhrmann's
depiction of the lovers in more intimate moments is less comfortable, particularly when
Rodolfo and Mimi embrace each other musically for the first time in front of the giant
glowing red "L'amour" sign outside Rodolfo's rooftop garret. It looks great, but
the sign is a greater focus than the lovers.
Catherine Martin's set designs embody greater subtlety elsewhere (though, again, not in
the sumptuously appointed second act, which explodes as much visually as it does aurally),
placing more focus on the performers, but even in those cases, the soul of the characters
and their troubles are diluted. It's not to a great degree, but it's enough to prevent the
most emotional moments in the narrative from being the most compelling.
Still, there is much that is good in this production, beginning and ending with the music.
Under the musical direction of Constantine Kitsopoulos, the orchestra (28 pieces,
including those used onstage) sounds wonderful. The orchestrations (by Nicholas
Kitsopoulos) may lack a bit of the breadth one may associate with traditional opera, but
still provide rich, full-bodied background for Puccini's soaring duets, trios, and
energetic second act group numbers.
Interpreting this music is an impressive group of performers, apparently culled from years
of exhaustive searching which resulted in three Rodolfos and Mimis and two Marcellos and
Musettas. While I only attended one performance, I had no complaints with the combination
I saw: David Miller and Ekaterina Solovyeva made an attractive and soulful pairing as
Rodolfo and Mimi, providing thrilling vocal performances of their material. Ben Davis was
less exciting as Marcello, though his Musetta, Chloe Wright, was sexy and seductive, very
much the smoldering presence the role can so richly benefit from.
One of the production's most watchable and enjoyable performers has no billed alternate:
Adam Grupper, as Benoit, the landlord threatening to collect the rent from Rodolfo,
Marcello, and their fellow roommates (Daniel Webb and Daniel Okulitch), made his portion
of the first act one of the funniest and most memorable of the evening.
Luhrmann's achievements in getting this La Boheme up and on Broadway can't be ignored -
how many directors could pull off an opera (in the original Italian) on Broadway in this
day and age? But his work with the Benoit scene and the second act festivities -
suggesting an ease not entirely present throughout - suggest that a more fully comic opera
might be an appropriate next endeavor for this talented director who seems to insists on
blurring further the already indistinct lines between opera and Broadway.
Such action would not be unwelcome, particularly given the respect Luhrmann displays for
both art forms. Where there is some artificial amplification utilized in this La Boheme,
the sound design provided by Acme Sound Partners is so subtly implemented the vocalists
and the orchestra never sound anything but completely natural. If any of Luhrmann's
stylistic ideas and innovations are to bleed over into the world of commercial Broadway
theatre, please let that one lead the way.
And let Luhrmann return to Broadway soon, in whatever form he chooses. He is capable of
working magic live just as he is on film, even if La Boheme does not prove the most ideal
vehicle for his talents. When he finds the right project, it seems safe to say Broadway
will never be the same again.
________________________________
Baz
Luhrmann brings Puccini's bohemians to Broadway
By Michael Sommers, The Star Ledger
8 December 2002
NEW YORK -- "There are easier ways to have
a hit than to do an Italian opera on Broadway," remarks director Baz Luhrmann about
his new staging of "La Bohème."
True. Grand opera rarely pops up along the Great White Way -- and rarely succeeds. In most
cases, it's been Americanized in language and location.
"My Darlin' Aida" set Verdi's Egyptian love triangle within a Civil War context.
"Carmen Jones" transformed Bizet's Spanish gypsies into African-American workers
at a 1940s defense plant.
Opening tonight at the Broadway Theatre, "La Bohème" is dressed down in 1950s
T-shirts and denim, but otherwise retains the original words -- still performed in Italian
-- and all of Giacomo Puccini's heart-rending music.
"The big, radical, shocking idea behind this production is that the center of
Puccini's work hasn't been toyed with," maintains Luhrmann, the Australian director
whose cinema hits include his extravagantly lush "Moulin Rouge" and the
MTV-styled "Romeo + Juliet."
The buzz so far on "La Bohème" has been favorable, reflecting its six-week
sell-out status in San Francisco this fall. The musical love story of the struggling poet
Rudolfo and the little seamstress Mimi, those Parisian slum-dwellers whose romance is
doomed by willfulness and consumption, apparently touches people who have never been
inside an opera house.
The language barrier is bridged by projecting English translations above and, in some
cases, below the action onstage. "We play it as a subtitled movie," explains
Luhrmann.
Amid the minimalist swank of a hotel penthouse, where he grabs some time away from the
show's technical rehearsals, Luhrmann traces the 12-year path of his $6.5 million Broadway
debut. A slender, fast-talking figure in a blue-black pinstripe suit, the director fondly
looks upon "La Bohème" as a "good-bye kiss" to his youth.
Before his film career took off in 1992 with "Strictly Ballroom," Luhrmann
successfully had staged "La Bohème" with the Australian Opera two years
earlier. That's where he encountered his wife-to-be, Catherine Martin, Academy
Award-winning designer of "Moulin Rouge" and all of Luhrmann's projects,
including his newest, "La Bohème."
"When we first did it, we were like bohemian characters ourselves," Luhrmann
says, recalling times enjoyed together in a Paris flat researching the opera's roots.
Describing his original as having "a lot of rambunctious, youthful energy," he
feels this latest interpretation possesses something of a wistful attitude.
"We're handing it on to another generation -- this understanding that we all go
through that bohemian time," says Luhrmann. "We all come to that point, no
matter who we are, when we realize that relationships and people die. You can't do
anything about that. And that scars you. But you grow and become adult from that.
"I think that's what is in 'La Bohème'," he remarks. "When Mimi dies, it's
sad and tragic. But you're left with the feeling that Rudolfo will grow as an artist from
this love."
The director's own professional and personal existence has so far rolled along smoothly.
"On the cusp of becoming truly adult, having just turned 40, I feel like I am at a
creative beginning, not an end," he says. Luhrmann and Martin, whom he calls
"C.M.," are shopping for a Manhattan home to alternate with their principal base
in Sydney. Once Luhrmann is done with "La Bohème" and loafs a bit, he heads to
Morocco to begin pre-production of a film about Alexander the Great that will star
Leonardo DiCaprio. Stage incarnations of both "Strictly Ballroom" and
"Moulin Rouge" are also in various degrees of development.
But "La Bohème" remains Luhrmann's pet project. Admitting he's "very nutty
about music," Luhrmann believes that "opera can be an exalting experience beyond
your wildest imagination. You stop merely looking at the magic and you join the
magic."
To spark the magic within "La Bohème," however, Luhrmann felt compelled to
reframe the tale, originally an 1840s novel that was transformed into a perennially
popular opera in 1896.
"Our mission was to deal with the work as if it was being done for the first
time," Luhrmann says. "But in Puccini's day, everybody got the language, got the
nuances. They laughed, they cried, they were moved."
That was a century ago, he points out. "We couldn't assume people today would make
the connections," explains Luhrmann. "Think 1840s bohemians -- big, floppy
velvet hats, checked pants, beards like ZZ Top -- how can we make audiences coming for the
first time, having no knowledge whatsoever of 1840s bohemian life, make those leaps over
the years to understand the characters?"
Luhrmann pondered redating the story to later periods. "These are nonpoliticized
middle-class boys reacting against their parents' values," he says, describing the
young artists. 1957 was deemed a "good match" for the characters, because
"they were rebelling without a cause." Luhrmann believes the iconic era of
Brando and beatniks is "immediately, deeply accessible" to contemporary
audiences.
To bring the action nearer to viewers, Martin's setting incorporates a passerelle -- a
stage runway that encircles the orchestra pit -- so the performers can be observed down in
front in relative close-up. "We have zoom-in moments on them there," says the
director.
Behind them, Martin's looming set design creates a romantic Latin Quarter drenched in
midnight blues with scarlet touches, such as a giant neon "L'amour" sign that
glimmers along the rooftop of Rudolfo's garret apartment.
A 50-member ensemble inhabits this world. To guard against the vocal harm of singing opera
eight times a week, three different teams alternate as Rudolfo and Mimi. Two other couples
portray the secondary leads of Marcello and Musetta.
Luhrmann spent practically two years in auditioning more than 3,000 performers for the
roles. His eventual choices vary in looks and nationalities, but all are young and as sexy
to the eye as they sound to the ear. Initially Luhrmann rehearsed the opera as a text
without music so the singers did not rely on the score as a crutch. During rehearsals, he
would also make them switch instantly from Italian to English, "and if they didn't
know exactly what they were saying, they'd be called out on it."
The director says he never considered producing an English-language version. "The
actual emotional content of this music is inherently linked to the shape of Italian words
and their vowels," he asserts. "Do it in English, you might as well do
'Rent.'" Yet the new supertitles employ 1950s vernacular. "We thought, as long
as we are not fundamentally changing the intentions, let's bite the bullet and have
anachronisms and leaps of the imagination," says Luhrmann.
Reports from San Francisco indicate that the "hey, cats"-style slang doesn't
jar. But some purists believe that the score has been trimmed. "It's driving me
nuts," says Luhrmann, sighing. "Every single note by Puccini is in there. You
know what it is? The musical director and I simply agreed to conduct the score at
Toscanini's original tempo -- at the rhythm of real life."
Luhrmann snaps his fingers to indicate a lively pace. A 26-piece orchestra performs
Puccini's own musical reduction, designed for touring companies, enhancing the sound with
extra strings and subtle use of a synthesizer.
Luhrmann claims his approach aims for the super-romanticism adored by Puccini's first
1890s audience. "If you look at 20th-century theater, it's all about distancing
devices, about saying to viewers, stand back, don't be emotional, intellectually respond.
But the 19th-century construct was to get you emotional and then intellectualize later
when you're having wine with friends," he says. "We have not tried to destroy
that overt romanticism. We've enhanced and embraced it. We have a love for it."
Staging the show, Luhrmann has been ever mindful of young people who might not have $95 to
splurge on the best locations. "I usually direct my technical rehearsals from the
worst seats in the house," he says, noting that the first two rows of the auditorium
are priced at $20.
"I was in the cheap seats as a student," says Luhrmann. "To me, those are
the audiences you never want to lose. They're the ones who are going to be there in the
theater over the coming generations."
________________________________
Giving More Puccini to
the People
By William Wright, The New York Times
8 December 2002
(The image featured with this article can be found on the Miscellaneous Images page.)
PUCCINI would be proud. His 1896 opera, "La
Bohème," is currently the big excitement, not at the Met or the New York City Opera,
but on Broadway, where it opens tonight to go toe to toe with "The Producers"
and "Hairspray." This brave new version of what is probably the most popular of
all operas was conceived and directed by the audacious Australian wunderkind Baz Luhrmann,
who did a similar production in 1990 for the Sydney Opera.
For many who saw this innovative interpretation on PBS in 1994, it was an operatic
epiphany. Among the enthusiasts were two of the producers of Jonathan Larson's
"Bohème"-based 1996 hit, "Rent" - Jeffrey Seller and Kevin McCollum -
along with their general manager, Emanuel Azenberg. They remember thinking how great it
would be to have their updated "Bohème" playing at the same time as the real
thing. Six years later, they have made this happen.
Mr. Luhrmann's real-thing "Bohème," as in Sydney, has young, attractive
singer-actors (three rotating sets of principals to avoid voice strain) and 1950's
Parisian settings. It also has a good bit of the boisterous tumult that marked his tour de
force film "Moulin Rouge" last year. But fear not, Puccini devotees, Mr.
Luhrmann's fervid inventiveness has not spilled over to the music. The score will be sung
as written.
"It's still Puccini's `La Bohème,' " he said last weekend, "but opera was
the popular entertainment of its day. I see our mission as taking this work back to the
broad audience for whom it was written: the child, the adult, the street sweeper, the
king, everyone."
There is nothing unusual about opera on Broadway. Starting with George Gershwin's
"Porgy and Bess," through the Menotti operas and on to Scott Joplin's
"Treemonisha," opera shows up as regularly in Broadway houses as Jackie Mason.
But there is something very different about Mr. Luhrmann's "Bohème." It is
being sung in Italian (with English titles). Since most of the world's great opera houses
often translate classic operas into the local language, this rigid adherence to
authenticity strikes many as above and beyond the respect due a masterpiece.
On this subject Mr. Luhrmann waxed doctrinaire during an interview at his Midtown hotel.
"The language is inherent and fundamental to the music," he said. He then added
with a charming lack of commercial savvy, "It just doesn't sound right in
English."
Aside from Mr. Luhrmann's "Bohème" complementing "Rent," there is
another bit of theatrical symmetry in its Broadway presentation. The opera opens at the
Broadway Theater, the same theater in which another updated opera, Oscar Hammerstein II's
"Carmen Jones," played to full houses for 502 performances in 1943 and 1944.
Hammerstein struck a ringing blow at the distinction between operas and musicals, but
tortured efforts at definition turn up with tedious regularity. (Mr. Luhrmann finds the
attempts "embarrassing.")
No matter what categorizing distinctions are put forward, exceptions immediately come to
mind to refute them. A fundamental difference, however, seems to lurk in the presence of
songs in standard pop formats. Most newcomers to opera, lost in a sea of music, strain to
find aesthetic life rafts, recognizable songs. If they don't hear any, they are probably
watching an opera (or a truly bad musical). Kurt Weill's 1947 "Street Scene" was
mostly sung and certainly had the sweep and range of an opera, yet while the songs were
identifiable, they broke free of Tin Pan Alley formulas. Whatever the differences, many
producers have refused to see them as insurmountable barriers and have - recklessly,
impractically - greatly enriched Broadway's history.
One of the first operas to impress Broadway was perhaps the greatest, "Porgy and
Bess," which opened in 1935. More than a decade earlier, Gershwin had written a
22-minute opera, "Blue Monday," for "George White's Scandals of 1922,"
but the piece was considered misplaced in the snappy revue and was cut after the first
performance. For years, Gershwin talked of writing a full-scale opera that would draw on
the traditions of European grand opera but still be accessible to everyday American
audiences. One of his main motives was a frustration that songs he considered first-rate
vanished in flop shows. Opera smacked of permanence.
When "Porgy and Bess" opened at the Alvin Theater, the critics recognized that
something important had occurred, but they had quibbles and it ran only an unprofitable
124 performances. Given the quickly recognized greatness of "Porgy and Bess,"
its lack of box-office success might have discouraged others from pushing opera onto
Broadway, but it didn't.
Even before "Oklahoma!," his history-changing triumph with Richard Rodgers,
Hammerstein was keen to bring an updated "Carmen" to Broadway. Scrupulously
adhering to Bizet's score, Hammerstein wrote a brilliant new libretto, resetting the story
in America's Deep South during World War II with an African-American cast, all with
operatic voices (unlike the subsequent film version). When Hammerstein set out to find a
producer, he was turned down, not surprisingly, again and again. Finally, the adventurous
showman Billy Rose liked the idea and mounted a sumptuous production, "Carmen
Jones," that thrilled both critics and audiences. (Nine years later, another attempt
was made to slip a grand opera over on Broadway, "My Darlin' Aida," but it
didn't do well.)
While one could argue whether "Porgy and Bess" and "Street Scene" were
technically operas, there was no doubt that Gian Carlo Menotti's brilliant horror tale,
"The Medium" (1947), was opera pure and simple. Not only would it make Broadway
history; it would change American opera for all time.
In spite of rave reviews for "The Medium," the opera stigma held audiences at
bay until Mr. Menotti got the idea of inviting Toscanini to a performance. Since the
maestro of all maestros was almost never seen in a Broadway audience, his appearance was
noted in the gossip columns. When he returned the next night, then a third, it caused a
sensation. Audiences swarmed to "The Medium," found they liked it as much as
Toscanini had, and kept it running to full houses for six months. No composer before or
since has matched Mr. Menotti's achievement: writing a serious opera for Broadway that
became a hit.
EXCEPT, that is, for Mr. Menotti. Three years later, his full-length opera "The
Consul" had the critics in all six of the city's major newspapers vying for
superlatives. He won a Pulitzer, and the production an eight-month run. In 1954, Mr.
Menotti's "Saint of Bleecker Street" also received enthusiastic reviews and
would go on to win a Pulitzer, but it ran only an unprofitable four months.
After Mr. Menotti's success with "The Medium" and "The Consul," the
day's most august composers of serious music hungered for similar showbiz triumphs. Igor
Stravinsky was determined to see a Broadway production of his opera "A Rake's
Progress," a complex work that most opera houses take a deep breath before staging.
The eccentric millionaire Huntington Hartford was willing to underwrite the opera, but
insisted that Stravinsky play a run-through of the score. Stravinsky refused and the
project fell apart.
No less a composer than Brazil's great Heitor Villa-Lobos joined the party in 1948 with
"Magdalena," an enterprise that began with the songwriters George Forrest and
Robert Wright writing a score based on Villa-Lobos's melodies. When the composer balked at
any tampering with his music, Wright and Forrest argued that they had done all right by
Edvard Grieg in their highly successful musical "Song of Norway." Unimpressed,
Villa-Lobos snapped, "Grieg is dead, but I am alive." Yet then, with remarkable
graciousness, Villa-Lobos offered to write a fresh score.
"Magdalena" ran into a musicians' strike and became a cause célèbre when the
producers claimed the piece was immune from union rules because it was not a musical but
an opera. After deliberating, the union announced that, since it was playing in a
legitimate theater, it was not an opera but a musical, and closed it, along with all the
other musicals. And you thought it didn't matter.
Hugely ambitious - even for Broadway - was a production of another classical curiosity,
Benjamin Britten's "Rape of Lucretia." Modern opera at its most unbending, it
opened at the Ziegfeld Theater in 1949 starring Kitty Carlisle and the Met's Giorgio
Tozzi. Today, Ms. Carlisle does not recall a sense of embarking on anything particularly
unusual, but then she was used to singing operas. She did, however, pick up rapidly on one
important difference: eight performances a week as opposed to opera's one or two a week.
Worried about her voice holding out, she asked her husband, Moss Hart, how long he thought
the Britten would run.
"About three weeks," he said.
"Good," she replied. "That's just about how long my voice will last."
Hart was right.
No one could accuse the composer Marc Blitzstein of jumping on the Menotti bandwagon when
he wrote his 1949 operatic version of Lillian Hellman's play "The Little Foxes,"
retitled "Regina." With no interest in the standard popular song formulas,
Blitzstein had been working toward an all-out opera for years. After the strong impact of
his score for the legendary "Cradle Will Rock," however, his music was
considered palatable for Broadway. Running only six weeks, "Regina" could not be
called a box-office success, but the work has many admirers and is performed with some
regularity in opera houses.
Like most operas that open on Broadway, "Treemonisha" in 1975 got a lot of
attention but fared poorly. Peter Brook's heavy-handed but arresting "Carmen"
makeover, "La Tragédie de Carmen" in 1983, did far better than an oddity the
following year that even opera buffs forget, Joseph Papp's "Bohème" at the
Public Theater with Linda Ronstadt. In a production that stuck strictly to Puccini's score
(and keys), Ms. Ronstadt made a valiant effort but proved that a big difference exists
between an opera singer and the finest pop vocalist.
One of the most frequent operatic visitors to Broadway has been Brecht and Weill's
"Threepenny Opera," which first appeared with Burgess Meredith for 12
performances at the Empire Theater in 1933. There was a successful run at the Vivian
Beaumont in 1976 with Raul Julia, a disastrous incarnation with Sting in 1989, even a
puppet version at the Billy Rose in 1966. But the show's greatest pinnacle in New York, if
not on Broadway, was the 1954 translation by Blitzstein that ran at the Theater de Lys,
now the Lucille Lortel, for an astounding six years, an operatic record.
When an opera opens on Broadway, the critics, or at least the press agents, proclaim that
the work breaks new ground in musical theater. Many of the operas did, even the reworkings
of classics. Now we have Baz Luhrmann's modern-dress "Bohème." With opera
houses in New York and all over the world doing imaginative productions with young,
good-looking singers, what will the differences be? After all, for decades, the Germans
have been putting Rodolfo in a black leather jacket.
Aside from Mr. Luhrmann's well-established theatrical wizardry, the main difference will
be his field of battle. Opera houses, for all their creativity and youthful verve, are
still seen by many as sequestered citadels of high art. For broad entertainment conquest,
Broadway theaters are the front lines. Opera buffs refer to "Aïda,"
"Bohème" and "Carmen" as the ABC's of opera. In their Broadway
incursions, the first failed, the third was a hit. It doesn't seem too much to hope that
it will be two out of three - in favor of opera. Go Luhrmann.
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