‘La bohème’ Returns to San Diego Opera with Winning Cast to Open Season
San Diego Opera opened its 60th anniversary season Friday with a production of Puccini’s La Bohème, the same opera the newly formed company presented in 1965 to inaugurate both San Diego Opera and the recently completed San Diego Civic Theatre.
(l. to r.) Latonia Moore, Harold Wilson, Søren Pedersen, Leroy Davis & Sarah Tucker [photo (c.) Karli Cadel]
This current La Bohème production, however, is connected to the company’s 2020 drive-in La Bohème, a radically innovative solution to the restrictions of the Covid-19 lockdown that staged the opera in the huge parking lot of San Diego’s Pachenga Arena. Audience members saw the opera from their vehicles, and Stage Director Keturah Stickann conceived the drama as a memory play in which Rodolfo was recalling the events of his tempestuous affair with Mimi some 15 years after the fact, a premise that also allowed the singers to maintain the required Covid-19 social distancing.
In 2020–when theaters were closed during the lockdown–this proved a surprisingly successful staging solution, so San Diego Opera General Director David Bennett invited Keturah Stickann back to bring this concept to this 2024 La Bohème production in San Diego Civic Theatre.
Under Stickann’s direction, the strong cast—featuring soprano Kathleen O’Mara as Mimi and tenor Joshua Blue as Rodolfo in their company debuts—brought vocal stamina and dramatic verve to this production. Blue’s rich, ample tenor provided a compelling Rodolfo, and his portrayal of Puccini’s amorous poet displayed a just combination of bravado and vulnerability. O’Mara’s gleaming soprano soared confidently into her upper range, while maintaining Mimi’s demure character. I did not sense sufficient chemistry between Blue and O’Mara in their first-act encounter, but their passionate third act lovers’ quarrel revealed the depth of their relationship..
In previous San Diego Opera seasons, Latonia Moore has sung a memorable Aïda and Cio-Cio-San, so her commanding soprano and ebullient characterization of Musetta came as no surprise. She easily dispensed with the doddering Alcindoro, her hapless sugar daddy aptly portrayed by veteran baritone Michael Sokol, and she quickly resumed her pursuit of Marcello, sung by Leroy Davis, a young baritone who revealed compelling vocal and dramatic prowess. Baritone Søren Pedersen as Schaunard and bass Harold Wilson as Colline admirably completed the circle of Rodolfo’s bohemian entourage.
Tim Wallace’s single multi-level set design allowed Stickann to employ its different sections for each act. For the familiar second act Cafe Momus scene, for example, the bohemians gathered around the table at the top of the stage as the panels behind them were turned around to display splashy posters advertising Parisian night life. At the opera’s denouement, Mimi was allowed to expire on the chaise longue that had ominously occupied the edge of stage right for the entire opera. The expected gentle snowfall of the opening of scene three set outside the gates of Paris, however, had to be supplied by the audience’s imagination or memories of more elaborate La bohème sets from previous productions. Susan Allred’s costumes suggested the turn of the 20th century, the decade in which the opera was first staged.
Chorus Master Bruce Stasyna’s well-trained chorus sang from the audience side aisles closest to the stage, an unusual arrangement that proved sonically effective for those of us seated in the front rows of Civic Theatre’s orchestra section. But I wonder how well their sound traveled to those seated in the balcony. Puccini’s vibrant score found laudable champions in Guest Conductor Lidiya Yankovskaya and the musicians of the opera orchestra.
The opera was staged by San Diego Opera in the San Diego Civic Theatre November 1–3, 2024. The Nov. 1 performance was attended for this review.
Ken Herman, a classically trained pianist and organist, has covered music for the San Diego Union, the Los Angeles Times’ San Diego Edition, and for sandiego.com. He has won numerous awards, including first place for Live Performance and Opera Reviews in the 2017, the 2018, and the 2019 Excellence in Journalism Awards competition held by the San Diego Press Club. A Chicago native, he came to San Diego to pursue a graduate degree and stayed.Read more…