Broadway Soundtrack Articles
La
Bohème Soundtrack
Festival Mushroom Records
Article posted online during November 2002
(Images featured with this article can be found on the Miscellaneous
Images page.)
Album: Original Cast Recording of Baz Luhrmann's
Production of Puccini's La Bohème
Acclaimed director Baz Luhrmann turned the soundtrack genre on it's head with soundtrack
albums from his films Strictly Ballroom, Romeo and Juliet and Moulin Rouge selling over 1
million copies in Australia alone. The Moulin Rouge soundtrack was Australia's highest
selling album for all of 2001.
Now, in conjunction with the December 8 Broadway debut of Luhrmann's reinvention of
Puccini's La Bohème, comes the release of the Original Broadway Cast Recording in
Australia on December 2.
The greatest love story ever sung, La Bohème tells the doomed love affair between the
seamstress Mimi and the writer Rodolfo set against the world of bohemian Paris. An opera
about real people, for real people, the story flourishes under Lurhmann's unique vision
which Australian audiences first witnessed in his early 90s Opera Australia production. In
presenting this timeless classic on Broadway, Luhrmann has cast young, sexy performers,
with three men and three women alternating in the principal roles of Rodolfo and Mimi and
two men and two women alternating in the principal roles of Marcello and Musetta. It is
sung in Italian (with English, modern slang surtitles for the stage) and conducted by
Musical Director, Constantine Kitsopoulos, and is entirely faithful to Puccini's
magnificent original score.
The Original Broadway Cast Recording features all three Mimi-Rodolfo pairs, as well as the
two Musettas and Marcellos and was recorded at George Lucas' Skywalker Ranch in California
(Luhrmann did post-production work on Romeo & Juliet there).
A preview run in San Francisco this month ("San Francisco is a great town for
creativity. People here embrace new concepts; it's fearless that way" - Luhrmann) has
already seen the production win wide praise from the US media. Variety said "It
captures the tale's sportive, youthful and impetuous aspects with a bravado that will
surely enchant those who might never see a 'Bohème' otherwise." From the San
Francisco Chronicle "Nirvana! Luhrmann's Broadway-style Bohème is simply
sensational. Ageless, achingly beautiful, with glorious voices, it sets a new standard for
musical theatre. Is it wonderful? Oh, yes indeed!"
Luhrmann and partner, Academy Award-winning designer Catherine Martin, have made their
careers by overturning convention and their Broadway production of La Bohème and
accompanying Cast Recording will be no exception, bringing La Bohème back to the audience
for whom Puccini wrote it - everyone.
Discography:
Soundtrack cat no. 336092
Released 2 December 2002
1. NON SONO IN VENA - Alfred Boe and Wei Huang
2. CHE GELIDA MANINA… - Alfred Boe
3. SI, MI CHIAMANO MIMI… - Wei Huang and Alfred Boe
4. O SOAVE FANCIULLA! - Alfred Boe and Wei Huang
5. E VIA I PENSIER! - Jessica Comeau, Eugene Brancoveanu, William Youmans, Wei Huang,
Alfred Boe, Daniel Okulitch, Daniel Webb, Full ensemble and Children's chorus
6. QUANDO ME'N VO'… - Jessica Comeau, Eugene Brancoveanu, William Youmans, Wei Huang,
Alfred Boe, Daniel Okulitch, Daniel Webb, Full ensemble and Children's chorus
7. CHI L'HA RICHIESTO?! - Daniel Webb, Daniel Okulitch, Alfred Boe, Eugene Brancoveanu,
Jessica Comeau, Wei Huang, Full ensemble and Children's chorus
8. MIMI?! SPERAVO DI TROVARVI QUI - Ben Davis and Ekaterina Solovyeva
9. MARCELLO, FINALMENTE! - David Miller, Ben Davis, Ekaterina Solovyeva
10. ADDIO! CHE! VAI? - David Miller and Ekaterina Solovyeva
11. DUNQUE: E PROPRIO FINITA! - David Miller, Ekaterina Solovyeva, Ben Davis, Chloe Wright
12. O MIMI TU PIU NON TORNI - Jesus Garcia , Eugene Brancoveanu
13. GAVOTTA! MINUETTO - Daniel Webb, Daniel Okulitch, Eugene Brancoveanu, Jesus Garcia
14. C'E' MIMI… - Chloe Wright, Jesus Garcia, Daniel Okulitch, Lisa Hopkins, Eugene
Brancoveanu, Daniel Webb
15. VECCHIA ZIMARRA… - Daniel Webb
16. SONO ANDATI? - Lisa Hopkins, Jesus Garcia
17. OH! DIO! MIMI! - Jesus Garcia, Daniel Okulitch, Lisa Hopkins, Chloe Wright, Eugene
Brancoveanu, Daniel Webb.
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La
Bohème Cast Album Will Be 'Highlights' Disc Using All Rotating Cast Members
By Kenneth Jones, Playbill Online
19 November 2002
All six of the rotating leads in the forthcoming
Broadway staging of La Bohème will be heard on the cast album, musical director
Constantine Kitsopoulos told Playbill On-Line.
"We did a highlights album," he said. "The whole opera is about 95 minutes
worth of music. We did about 67 minutes of the opera, so we did most of it. The way we
split it up is: One couple does Act One and part of Act Two, another does Act Three,
another does Act Four. We represent them over the course of the album."
Kitsopoulos said he'd loved to record the full score, but "that is a question of how
well the highlights album sells and what the record company interest is in doing an entire
album."
The two men and two women respectively playing Marcello and Musetta - the famed subplot
that offers "Musetta's Waltz" - will also be heard on the cast album, in stores
Dec. 10 from the Dreamworks label.
Previews for the Broadway run of the Baz Luhrmann- directed staging begin Nov. 29 at the
Broadway Theatre. Opening is Dec. 8. The rotating casts are used because of the vocally
demanding nature of the Puccini opera. The 1896 classic is reimagined and re-set by
Luhrmann and designer Catherine Martin in 1957 Paris. The opera will be sung in Italian
with English supertitles.
Playing Rodolfo in rep will be David Miller, Jesús Garcia and Alfred Boe, opposite the
rotating Mimis of Ekaterina Solovyeva, Lisa Hopkins and Wei Huang. Jessica Comeau and
Chlöe Wright share Musetta opposite the Marcellos of Eugene Brancoveanu and Ben Davis.
The orchestra for the recording was enhanced to 60 players from the 28 in the pit.
Electronic keyboards are used in the pit for sweetening, but are not heard on the
recording, Kitsopoulos said.
For ticket information, call (212) 239-6200.
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Opera Review
(no link)
By Deborah Jones, The Advertiser (Adelaide, Australia)
December 2002
Don't underestimate the guts it has taken to put La Boheme on Broadway as Baz Luhrmann and his passionate backers have done - the latter include Jeffrey Sellar and Kevin McCollum, producers of the musical Rent which, as everyone knows, is based on La Boheme. Nice. Australia isn't the only place that likes a spot of poppy-lopping and with its string of high-profile and audaciously conceived successes, the Luhrmann trajectory might have seemed ready for a correction. It hasn't come yet, thank goodness, and the production that thrilled Sydney to bits in 1990 (and 1993 and 1996) is now thrilling New York. Baz's Boheme would never have been right for the sniffy Metropolitan Opera, quite apart from the fact that it needs an intimate theatre. It is absolutely spot-on for a general public that's not as stupid as some like to think. Because you can't flog operatic voices night after night, Luhrmann has three Mimi-Rodolfo combinations for Broadway, the masterstroke being tha tthe three are prooted as different but equal. There's no sense of a second best and people well-heeled enough or passionate enough will undoubtedly want to see more than one cast - if they can get a seat. For fans here the "cast recording" (please don't have a heart attack, opera snobs) gives a good feeling of the relative merits of the three pairings. This is a one-CD highlights version featuring Alfred Boe and Wei Huang in excerpts from acts I and II, David Miller and Ekaterina Solovyeva in act III, and Jesus Garcia and Lisa Hopkins in act IV. Boe, a pleasingly full bodied tenor, and Huang glow in 'O, soave fanciulla', full of young love and promise, while Miller and Solovyeva have an edgier sound that hints at what lies ahead. Garcia has an affecting purity that makes the death of his Mimi moving, even in this truncated form. Crucially, all singers, including the two Musettas, Jessica Comeau and Chloe Wright, revel in the unstoppable vivacity of Luhrmann's production. The Cafe Momus scene pulsates with life and it's great fun to hear how Luhrmann has turned Musetta's elderly admirer into an old English fart with limited Italian and an execrable accent. This recording could be just the thing to send you off to your travel agent.
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