Gallic to Teutonic Opera Australia's 'La bohème' - reviewed by HOWARD SMITH '... Park is suitably distraught ...'

Decidedly a remix, cosmopolitan Puccini production -- an Italian opera, it's original setting Paris, Chicago's Takesha Meshé Kizart as Mimi; South Korean tenor Ji-Min Park as Rodolfo; the whole shebang relocated in the decadent German Weimar Republic (1919-1933), devised and presented at Melbourne Arts Centre in Australia (2011).

Transported from the Paris 5th arrondissement, 'Latin Quarter' (1830/40s) to Germany during the emergence of the Nazi Party and Adolf Hitler, an era re-enacted by Sally Bowles (Liza Minnelli 'Cabaret', 1972) in the filmed Broadway musical adapted from Berlin Stories of Christopher Isherwood (1939).

Here, though the Nazis hover ominously around; their presence doesn't over-intrude on the undergraduate bustle and consumptive tragedy.

Watch and listen -- Puccini: Ecco giocattoli di Parpignol!..

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Copyright © 10 November 2012 Howard Smith,
Masterton, New Zealand

PUCCINI: LA BOHEME - OPERA AUSTRALIA

GIACOMO PUCCINI

LA BOHEME

PARIS

FRANCE

AUSTRALIA

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