La Bohème
The Usher Hall
We gave a really good review to Ellen Kent Opera's Madama Butterfly. Sadly La Boheme wasn't that good. It wasn’t bad - I've given it three stars and there was some decent singing and reasonable orchestral accompaniment, but Covent Garden or Scottish Opera it wasn't. But then Ellen Kent Opera doesn't claim to replace our leading opera companies, but to take opera out to towns and cities which often don't see opera of any standard. Tonight I met several people who were attending an opera for the first time, and they were enjoying it very much. Of course they hadn't seen opera of an international standard live before, but some had been to the cinema transmissions from the Met and the Royal Opera House. However I also met some experienced opera goers who like me had serious doubts about the quality of some of the singing tonight.
Ellen Kent Opera has developed close links with East European opera companies, particularly from Ukraine and Moldova, who provide them with much cheaper musicians and young singers. This no doubt enables them to mount their touring productions without state subsidy. For that we should be grateful, but of course we shouldn't suspend our critical faculties - it is the job of the critic to be critical! So firstly the staging worked well, and the singers engaged in good business in their roles as young bohemians having fun in Paris.The orchestra weren't bad under the conductor Nicolae Dohotaru, although he received an ironic cheer when he returned after a very long first interval! Three of the Bohemians weren't bad, Marcello sung by Iurie Gisca, Schaunard sung by Vitalli Cebotari, and Colline by Vadim Cernovettky - all had decent bass/baritone voices and sang and acted well. Mimi, our heroine, was sung by Alyona Kistenyova, who has a sweet-toned voice, but her acting was a little cliched.The major problems were Rodolfo, the hero, who was sung by Vitalii Liskovetskyi, who apparently used to be a pilot in the Ukraine. I'm not convinced he made the right career move! He had a 'head voice' which seemed at times adenoidal and at the top end when singing out it was less than beautiful. Musetta (sung by Maria Tonino) is of course meant to be a little over the top in her big scene in the Cafe Momus, but she was totally over the top in her acting, and her singing was distinctly wobbly at the top in her big aria, although she did improve later in her smaller contributions. I should also mention Musetta's dog, a well behaved little white dog named Barney Bo, who was lucky he wasn't thrown round the stage like they used to do at Covent Garden!
So overall it wasn't great, but the decent audience at the Usher Hall (maybe 1,000) gave the company a warm response and went home happy. However, I wonder how many went to Scottish Opera's Nixon in China, also on in Edinburgh that week after its rave reviews in Glasgow. We at the Edinburgh Music Review of course reviewed it and gave it five stars, we reviewed Ellen Kent's Madame Butterfly, also at our "new opera house", on Thursday night and gave it four stars. Ellen Kent should be congratulated for bringing opera to Edinburgh and for transforming the Usher Hall into Edinburgh's second opera house. It’s quite a feat to give Edinburgh a new opera house!
