It made the opera joyful, heart wrenching, and immersive. The other sets included a colorful cafe bursting with music, and a lonely snowy courtyard. Marcello’s art supplies cluttered the corners. The peeling wall paper was greyed with grime. The first scene is the main artist’s apartment. My discomfort around being the only person under 50-purple hair in a sea of white-soon faded as I got swept up in the atmosphere and set.Īlmost entirely made of painted tarp, the set was simple, detailed, and absolutely stunning.
For a show about the trials of being young and poor, the audience was anything but. With the electronic subtitles, the ornate theater, and the modest set, the opera house felt like an artistic contradiction. The jokes kept their timing while the writing came across, and did not distract from the arias at all. The opera is entirely in Italian, but never fear there were English subtitles above the stage. Similar to these four characters, there were many artists putting their bodies on the line in this last year, making La Boh ème a thoughtful and timely choice from the Seattle Opera. It’s a story that felt heartachingly familiar in the midst of the pandemic. The underlying fear of disease and how it interacts with the characters economic status as artists is a tragically age old story. Musetta, a friend of Mimi’s, carries a more comedic, on-again-off-again romance with Marcello. Rodolfo meets sweet-girl-next-door Mimi, and their love-as well as their subsequent tragedy-become the heart of the show. La Boh ème follows young Parisian artists Rodolfo and Marcello as they fall in and out of love.
La Boh ème, a hundred year old story of love, loss, and illness, was made especially potent as the first show at McCaw Hall in 18 months. McCaw Hall opened its doors for a Seattle Opera performance for the first time since the pandemic.
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