As the world burns, Vancouver Opera’s season closer La Bohème is on track to become the highest-grossing opera in the company’s 66-year history, surpassing the record formerly held by the 2023-2024 season production of Carmen.
While one might well assume it’s partly due to escapist instincts – a chance to delve into an iconic love story amidst apocalyptic television news – in fact Puccini’s ever popular classic marked Italian opera’s departure from the virtuosic ornamentation of bel canto into the verismo style. This celebrated the stories of “ordinary people,” often with a gritty or tragic emotional intensity.
And while La Bohème was based on Henri Murger’s 1851 novel, Scènes de la vie de bohème, a collection of vignettes portraying young bohemians living in Paris in the 1840s that was later made into a play, it also had some autobiographical elements.
Puccini himself was no stranger to poverty early on in his career, and, as Mimi’s friends do in the final scene, once pawned his overcoat. At one particularly difficult moment he wrote in his diary, “Supper for four people: one herring,” and as the bohemian characters do in the opera, he would hide in the closet when his landlord came to collect the rent.
As pointed out at a pre-show talk on opening night, there was a Romantic obsession with tuberculosis – the illness that Mimi succumbs to (the opera is so iconic, I hope there’s no need for a “spoiler alert.”) As Lord Byron said, “I should like, I think to die of consumption – it is so romantic.” The wealthy and fashionable at the time would revel in special make up to increase their pallor and make their cheeks feverishly red. These days, all they have to do is buy one of the few tickets left to Vancouver Opera’s La Bohème.
Thomas Goerz as Alcindoro and Lara Ciekiewicz as Musetta in Vancouver Opera’s 2026 production of La Bohème.
While the tragic tale of Mimi and Rodolfo has inspired the likes of the musical RENT– where AIDS in the late 80’s East Village replaced TB in 19th Century Paris – the 2001 film Moulin Rouge and even Moonstruck, (where the characters played by Cher and Nicolas Cage fall in love at the Met to the strains of O Soavae Fanciulla) it continues to be relevant. A short walk through Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside – which still has one of the highest national rates of TB – en route to the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, reveals more than a few tragic characters selling their overcoats for their next fix.
But if opera is your narcotic of choice, then this La Bohème will not disappoint. Rather than play fast and loose with eras and adaptations, (a 2018 Vancouver Opera production transported the story to 1920s Paris, complete with a wandering accordionist) director Brenna Corner (artistic director of Pacific Opera Victoria) treats this production with a certain historical reverence, augmented by a traditional set designed by Steven C. Kemp provided by the New Orleans Opera Association and Costumes provided by Sarasota Opera Association. At times I wanted Corner to be a bit more fast and loose with this classic of the canon – but it mostly worked.
The direction, both musical (Jonathan Darlington was back as conductor in fine form and to warm applause) and dramatic, echoes the rhythms of consumption – at times feverishly manic, at others languid and depressed.
Lara Ciekiewicz as Musetta and Gregory Dahl as Marcello in Vancouver Opera’s 2026 production of La Bohème.
In this double cast production, the role of Rodolfo alternates between Matthew White – who played Don José in Vancouver Opera’s 2024 production of Carmen (April 25, 30, May 2) and Zachary Rioux (April 26, May 3) and Mimi is played by Jonelle Sills (April 25, 30, May 2) and Lucia Cesaroni (April 26, May 3).
On opening night, the first scene of Marcello (well played by Gregory Dahl) and Rodolfo at work in their freezing garret, was almost stolen by Dahl, whose buoyant baritone and stage presence threatened to overwhelm a more timid White, who seemed vocally strained and dramatically limp. But he came into his own when he met up with Jonelle Sills’ ravishing Mimi, the seamstress neighbour who knocks on his door hoping to light her candle, and their duet O Soavae Fanciulla was memorable.
Sills – a 2022 alumnae of Vancouver Opera’s Yulanda M.Faris’ Young Artists Program who debuted as Mimi in 2023 for the Canadian Opera Company, brings warmth, grace and a rich, at times thrilling soprano to her role. She is equally at ease with Mimi’s high notes – musically and dramatically – as well as the subtle flourishes of the final scene.
Lara Ciekiewicz’s Musetta was dramatically strong – alternating between the over-the-top coquette in the Momus Café scene of Act 1 to the compassionate friend in the final scene and she was well paired with Dahl in their fiery duets.
Alex Halliday as Colline, Justin Welsh as Schaunard, Matthew White as Rodolfo, Thomas Goerz as Benoit, and Gregory Dahl as Marcello. Vancouver Opera’s 2026 production of La Bohème.
Indeed, the Momus Café scene is a highlight – with a rollicking opera chorus and delightful children’s chorus out in full force, evoking an imagined Paris (Puccini had never been to the city of lights when he wrote La Bohème) on Christmas Eve. Scene stealers included Lyndon Ladeur as Parpignol, the toymaker and Thomas Goerz (who also plays a comical Benoit – the landlord – in the first scene) as Musetta’s put upon sugar daddy Alcindoro.
The act 3 duet Donde lieta uscì between White and Jonelle, when they agree to stay together until spring time and then part, was genuinely moving and the raucous back and forth between a spit fire Musetta and a jealous Marcello was equally strong as a passionate counterpoint to la tendresse of Mimi and Rodolfo as the four characters join together in a quartet, Addio dolce svegliare alla mattina.
While the final scene in the garret, as Mimi lies dying of consumption and tells Rodolfo that her love for him is her whole life in the aria/duet, Sono andati was poignant and beautifully sung, and Colline’s (Alex Halliday’s) paean to his soon to be pawned overcoat Vecchia zimarra heartfelt, it felt almost underplayed.
But perhaps this was a deliberate technique to offer the audience time to reflect on the roller coaster of romance and reality that is the artist’s life.