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By
Sheldon Barwick
This production of La Boheme is Oxford City
Opera’s first fully-staged production.
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| Merle
Fairhurst as Mimi in La Boheme. |
The
company is striving to revive a tradition of staging opera in the
city and if this first production is anything to go by, it should
be very successful.
From
the moment the cast came on stage there was no sense of opening-night
nerves with great performances from the offing.
The
sets, while not greatly complicated, were very effective and extremely
well lit. All the cast handled their parts impeccably – from the
comic in the opening scene to the tragic in the ending (but I won’t
tell you what happens!
This
was all handled by a very capable musical director. The only small
flaw was some nervousness in the orchestra, but this did not detract
from the performance.
Equally
good was the stage direction. The characters really pulled you in
and you connected with them all. The performance is also subtitled.
I
had not been to a performance with subtitling before and I found
it really useful and, once I was used to it, found it didn’t intrude
at all into the performance.
The
roles of Marcello, Mimi and Musetta are shared between two performers
each and I am sure that the performers I did not see tonight will
fill the roles just as well.
The
production was very good, and hopefully will provide a stepping-stone
to even better things in the future. Oxford City Opera is definitely
a company to watch.
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Another production of La Boheme is playing at the Oxford Apollo.
March 20 - 21
Time: 19:30;
Tickets: £13 - £39
Click
here for Oxford Apollo
details
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