As part of the #OurHouseToYourHouse series, join The Royal Opera for a Premiere stream of Puccini’s La bohème
👍 Don’t forget to subscribe to our channel for notifications about future streams
🗣️ Join our live-chat to discuss the production with viewers from around the world
⏲️ This video will be available on-demand until 17 July 2020
📶 Occasionally, slow connection speeds locally may cause buffering. If this happens, reduce the picture quality to suit your connection by clicking on the gear icon, and then selecting an alternate option under ‘quality’
—
🙏 This crisis is impacting theatres and venues across the globe. If you are able, please consider making a donation to help sustain our Royal Opera House community:
In this uncertain time, and as productions and events are postponed at the Royal Opera House and around the world, we’re offering a schedule of free broadcasts and live content that audiences can access for free anywhere, anytime across the globe, bringing both ballet and opera to every home and every device.
We also invite you to sign up for a free trial on Marquee TV, the international multi-genre performing arts streaming service.
—
🎭 Cast & creative team:
Mimì: Nicole Car
Rodolfo: Michael Fabiano
Marcello: Mariusz Kwiecień
Musetta: Simona Mihai
Chorus: Royal Opera Chorus
Orchestra: Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Conductor: Antonio Pappano
Music: Giacomo Puccini
Libretto: Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica
Director: Richard Jones
Designer: Stewart Laing
Lighting desginer: Mimi Jordan Sherin
Movement: Sarah Fahie
—
📖 The Story (contains spoilers)
When Rodolfo, a penniless poet, meets Mimì, a seamstress, they fall instantly in love. But their happiness is threatened when Rodolfo learns that Mimì is gravely ill.
Rodolfo is painfully aware that he cannot afford the medicine and care Mimì needs, and so separates from her. As her sickness takes hold Mimì returns to Rodolfo’s garret. They are joyfully reunited – but, despite the care of Rodolfo and his friends, Mimì dies.
—
💡 Background:
Puccini’s opera of passion, friendship and heartbreak is one of the best-loved operas worldwide. Its music includes such treats as Rodolfo and Mimì’s Act I arias and duet, the ebullient choruses of Act II and Mimì’s heartrending death scene. Richard Jones’s recent production for The Royal Opera perfectly captures the vulnerability of youth amid the harshness and glamour of a big city. The atmospheric designs, by Stewart Laing, evoke both the poverty of the bohemians’ attic home and the splendour of Paris’s shopping arcades on Christmas Eve.
The opera blends tragedy and comedy, the soulful and the spirited, into a powerful encapsulation of the intenseness of life’s experiences to its young would-be artists and their lovers, in this recording performed by a winning young cast under the baton of Antonio Pappano, Music Director of The Royal Opera.
—
🙏 With warm thanks to:
Mrs Aline Foriel Destezet (Season Principle), Ruinart and all the supporters of The Royal Opera
A co-production with:
Teatro Real, Madrid, and Lyric Opera of Chicago
—
📀 This production is available to buy on DVD and Blu-Ray:
Also available from Opus Arte:
📀Verdi: It trovatore (The Royal Opera)
Starring Alexander Tsymbalyuk, Lianna Haroutounian, Francesca Chiejina, Gregory Kunde, Vitaliy Bilyy, Anita Rachvelishvili; Orchestra & Chorus of the Royal Opera House; Richard Farnes
Conductor Richard Farnes drew some fabulous singing from the Royal Opera Chorus: the women in particular were a credit to their new director William Spaulding in the hushed luminosity of their offstage requiem in the final act. And the dynamic maestro energised the ROH Orchestra throughout the performance with a succession of interpretational subtleties whose inventiveness kept Verdi’s old war horse on the gallop. It is well worth a listen.” (WhatsOn Stage ★★★★)
📀Frederick Ashton Triple (The Royal Ballet)
“Choreographically and musically, Ashton’s ballets remain as lustrous as the day he made them, and the Royal continues to give a fine account of them. The triple bill was splendidly danced over the course of its nine-day run. Fairies flitted beguilingly in The Dream, Symphonic Variations wove its ineffable spell, a trio of sad-eyed Marguerites expired in their lovers’ arms. Of starry performances, there was no shortage.” (The Guardian ★★★★)
