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Sonya Yoncheva and Charles Castronovo lead an award-winning cast in Richard Jones’s acclaimed production of Puccini’s most heartrending opera. Emmanuel Villaume conducts the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House and the Royal Opera Chorus in some of the composer’s most luscious and memorable music.
Spectacular designs by Stewart Laing for this Royal Opera production set the passion, friendship, comedy and tragedy in a late 19th-century Paris. The production evokes the vulnerability of youth amid the harshness and glamour of the big city, and contrasts the poverty of the bohemian’s attic home with the splendour of Paris’s shopping arcades on Christmas Eve.
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Rodolfo: Charles Castronovo
Mimì: Sonya Yoncheva
Marcello: Andrzej Filonczyk
Musetta: Simona Mihai
Schaunard: Gyula Nagy
Colline: Peter Kellner
Benoît: Jeremy White
Alcindoro: Eddie Wade
Parpignol: Andrew Macnair
Royal Opera Chorus
Chorus Master: William Spaulding
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Conductor: Emmanuel Villaume
Composer: Giacomo Puccini
Director: Richard Jones
Set Designer: Stewart Laing
Lighting Designer: Mimi Jordan Sherin
Movement Director: Sarah Fahie
Directed for the Screen by Jonathan Haswell
Extras: Why The Royal Opera love performing La bohème; Antonio Pappano discusses the music of La bohème; Cast Gallery
Picture: 16:9
Region code: All Regions
Format: Blu-ray
Subtitles: EN/FR/DE/JP/KO
Sound: LPCM 2.0, DTS Digital Surround
Duration: 118 mins
Year: 2020
"Castronovo's voice is one I could listen to all evening for its clarity and easy flowing warmth: the duet 'O soave fanciulla' is right in the middle of his sweet spot." Bachtrack
"This was, in fact, her [Sonya Yoncheva's] finest assumption of a role so far at Covent Garden that I personally have experienced; she inhabited Mimì from the very first phrase, the character’s vulnerability immediately apparent." Seen and Heard International
"Emmanuel Villaume conducts with plenty of virile exuberance" The Daily Telegraph
"Exuberant and persuasive… performed with élan" The Guardian
"Covent Garden's Puccini revival is a snowy spectacle" The Times
Super singing, a nice music, an enjoyable performance. The attic scene seemed a tad bare, so I still rate the 2009 version the best.
This La Boheme was a thoroughly enjoyable production with beautiful singing and interesting stage sets, especially the mobile arcades both inside and out. Sonia Yoncheva sang beautifully but we felt that with regard to casting, as a consumptive, she was possibly a little robust for a Mimi and in all but the final garret scene, for us, her acting was not always convincing. Simona Mihai was a pleasure to watch and the performance as a whole was beautiful and moving. We’re so pleased to have to have bought the Blu-ray video and look forward to repeat performances as and when!
