Arts & Events

Having attended the first performance of this current production of Puccini’s beloved La Bohème, I decided to attend a second performance for two reasons. My reservations about the first performance all focused on conductor Carlo Montanaro and his tendency to smother the singers beneath all too loud orchestra. So I wanted to see if anyone had prevailed upon Montanaro to tone down his volume. Secondly, I was curious to hear Julie Adams sing her first major role on the big stage of the Opera House. I first heard Julie Adams in 2014 when she sang the role of Blanche DuBois in a Merola Opera production of André Previn’s A Streetcar Named Desire. Though this is an opera I dislike (based on a Tennessee Williams play I detest), Julie Adams made a huge impression on me. In a difficult role, she was excellent. Next, in a Merola Grand Finale, I heard Julie Adams sing a saccharine aria from Eric Korngold’s Die Tote Stadt and, more gratifyingly, Susannah’s duet with Reverand Blitch from Carlysle Floyd’s opera Susannah. When she graduated to the main stage at San Francisco Opera, I heard Julie Adams sing minor roles such as Kate Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly, Kristina in The Makropulos Case, and Karolka in Jenufa.  

Given that all these examples were a bit outside the mainstream soprano repertory, I wondered how the very obvious vocal talents of Julie Adams would fare in more standard repertory. And what more standard repertory is there than La Bohème? So let’s take up first the question of whether the role of Mimi is right for Julie Adams? My answer is a bit equivocal. Julie Adams’ soprano is full, almost hefty, and perhaps it’s a bit too hefty for the frail, tubercular Mimi. Not that Julie Adams didn’t sing grandly as Mimi. She certainly did, at least in the performance I attended on Sunday, June 25. Julie Adams has a lush tone and she excels in hitting the high notes sung fortissimo. However, the role of the frail Mimi, who starts out sickly and dies at the end of La Bohème, is perhaps not the best role to highlight the strong vocal talents of Julie Adams. I can imagine Julie Adams as a Turandot; and I can definitely see her as either a Donna Anna or a Donna Elvira in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, or even a Constanze in Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail. Let me be clear: it’s not that there was anything to quibble at in Julie Adams’ performance of the role of Mimi in La Bohème. Yet there is a question about what roles are best suited to a particular singer’s voice.  

Now let’s move on to my other reason for attending a second performance of this year’s La Bohème. After an opening performance that was hampered by the brutal conducting of Carlo Montanaro, for which he was chided by not only myself but also Joshua Kosman of the San Francisco Chronicle, conductor Carlo Montanaro seems to have gotten the message. He toned down the volume as well as the pace of his interpretation of the score of La Bohème; and the results this time around were far superior. The supporting cast was excellent as always; and this time the opera came together nicely as a wholly gratifying experience. It was a joy to hear tenor Arturo Chacón-Cruz’s eloquent phrasing in the role of Rodolfo, something that tended to get lost in the sonic overkill of the first performance. In fact, all the singers benefitted from more relaxed conducting from Carlo Montanaro. Only the overcoat aria sung by bass Scott Conner remained underwhelming. Otherwise, this was a thoroughly enjoyable and vocally exciting production of Puccini’s perennial favorite, La Bohème.