Photo: Dan Rest. (l to r Quinn Kelsey, Andrea Silvestrelli, Elaine Alvarez, Roberto Aronica, a lady friend (uncredited), Levi Hernandez)
(Opera Chic has the radio broadcast)
There are nights when everything comes together in the opera house, and one of them was at Monday's La Bohème at Lyric Opera, when the company dusted off Pier Luigi Pizzi's 1972 production. Elaine Alvarez's Mimì was the obvious point of interest, filling in at the last-minute for Angela Gheorghiu, unceremoniously released from her contract, but the rest of the cast, headed by a superb Rodolfo sung with ringing ardor by Roberto Aronica, made this into a tragic ensemble drama. Credit for that must go to Renata Scotto in her Lyric Opera debut as director, who kept the singers focused on each other and not playing to the crowd.
From the start, Alvarez proved to be entirely at ease on stage, projecting easily and deploying her warm soprano with great sensitivity. You couldn't help but be taken in by her shy singing of Act I's "Sì, mi chiamano Mimì," and she generated an incredible pathos in Act III, as she realizes that she and Rodolfo must separate. By the time she died in Act IV, her successful debut was a foregone conclusion. Any singer who can make this role dramatic and not melodramatic deserves a place on the world's major stages.
Aronica wielded a powerful tenor throughout the evening, with a steely edge that still blended well with
Alvarez. There might not be a wide range of colors in it, but his voice still commands attention. Nicole Cabell as Musetta was the evening's other major star, with a soprano with a major-league wow factor embedded in it. Her shining voice communicated her character's coquettish glee, and she's got the looks to make it believable. Moreover, she's really living up to that Cardiff Singer of the World title from 2005.
Lyric Opera's Ryan Opera Center was the unspoken feature of this production. Quinn Kelsey, Levi Hernandez and Nicole Cabell are recent graduates, and Kelsey, as Marcello, and Hernandez, as Schaunard, gave stand-out performances. Bass Andrea Silvestrelli, singing Colline, turned his Act IV aria, sung to his beloved coat, into a show-stopping moment.
Sir Andrew Davis led an idiomatic account from the orchestra, and the audience pretty much flipped out at the curtain. Alvarez looked supremely touched during her ovations, which were surely earned. Whether she sung with perfect technique through every register and deserves to be lionized down through the ages, or should be shouted down as some sort of fraud, I'll leave to the sages and obsessive opera fans. All I know is that last night, she was singing with the poise and grace of a true diva, in a production that shows what is possible when a gorgeous score is allowed to be the inspiration.
Photo: Dan Rest. Alvarez and Aronica