Those bohemians might have been penniless, but they certainly knew how to time-travel. In Annabel Arden’s staging for Welsh National Opera they have whizzed from the 1840s Montmartre of Henry Murger’s original story to the early 20th-century Paris of Colette and Cocteau. Musetta, the kept woman, flaunts lavish Edwardian gowns, but Mimi shivers in a short hemline. And to judge from the glimpse of his masterpiece projected behind the action, the painter Marcello is more in thrall to Chagall and Picasso, the coming men, than Monet.
Paris itself plays a big part in Arden’s conception, too. Stephen Brimson Lewis’s designs, Tim Mitchell’s lighting and Nina Dunn’s projections cleverly mesh to depict dawns and sunsets over a skyline chalked with a thousand houses. True, when the bohemian chums go prancing over the rooftops you do fear that someone is about to shout “On the chimney, Mary Poppins”. But these topographical details undeniably root the story in a time and place.
Arden is less good at injecting fizz into the action. She needs to borrow some of the conductor Carlo Rizzi’s fervour. Puccini’s opera may be the ultimate weepie, but the tragedy is intensified if it strikes down people intoxicated with joie de vivre. These bohemians seem a pretty dour lot, and Café Momus rather like a sedate Pizza Express, albeit with a couple of drag queens at one table. Arden also contrives to mess up the endings of three acts — most notably Mimi’s death — by giving incidental characters bizarre entrances or exits that distract from the main event.
A pity, because there are many good performances. David Kempster’s Marcello has an embittered streak that adds a volatile edge to his scenes with Kate Valentine’s actressy Musetta. Both sing strongly, as do David Soar (Colline) and Gary Griffiths (Schaunard). The Spanish tenor Alex Vicens cranks up some lacerating top notes, though he delivers Rodolfo’s music as if declaiming a speech rather than expressing deepfelt love. But I was touched by the young Romanian soprano Anita Hartig as Mimi. Her acting is unaffected, her aura of vulnerability haunting, her commitment total, and her singing stylish and crystal-clear. With a little more colour she could go to the top.
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