La Boheme at San Francisco Opera

In the many productions I have seen over the decades of Puccini's perennially popular opera La Boheme, I have never once laughed at its young characters' antics or cried at its sad ending, but did both on Tuesday evening at the San Francisco Opera. (All production photos by Cory Weaver.)

One of the reasons was that the ensemble playing young Parisian bohemians in the 19th century looked and behaved like friends who would actually hang out together. Tenor Pene Pati as the writer Rodolfo, bass Bogdan Talos as the philosopher Colline, baritone Samuel Kidd as the musician Schaunard, and baritone Lucas Meachem as the painter Marcello played off of each other with wit and charm, and instead of the opening scene's usual mugging schtick there was precise and understated humor. All credit to British director John Caird who created this production which was first seen here in 2014, and to the revival director Katherine M. Carter.

Another reason was the sweet, gentle chemistry between the two leads, Pene Pati and Karen Chia-ling Ho as Mimi, the poor seamstress who eventually becomes a kept girl. Pati displayed some vocal uncertainty in the big, high climaxes of his famous arias but otherwise he sounded beautiful. So did Karen Chia-ling Ho whose soprano voice is exquisite in this role. Even better, both vocalists sang their roles rather than belting them.

Soprano Andrea Carroll was a nice surprise as Musetta, the on-again, off-again girlfriend of Marcello when she's not being squired around town by rich old men. Her star turn in Act Two at the Cafe Momus was nicely sung and genuinely funny.

For once, she actually seemed to be an integral part of this young circle of friends.

Mimi and Rodolfo's going from falling in love at first sight in Act One to breaking up months later in Act Three has always confused me. What happened, exactly?

The supertitles by director John Caird are unusually good, and it finally became clear that the reason for the breakup was because Rodolfo was pathologically jealous and a jerk about it and it all got too ugly, which he finally confesses to his friend Marcello. Pene Pati seems too kind to be that kind of asshole, but it's not unusual behavior.

Musetta meanwhile breaks off with Marcello, announcing that he's the worst kind of lover, "which is somebody who acts like a husband."

In warm reviews of the opening performance by Joshua Kosman at On a Pacific Aisle and Lisa Hirsch at SF Classical Voice, they had polar opposite feelings about the Spanish conductor Ramón Tebar. Joshua wrote: "the weakest, most ill-judged conducting the War Memorial has witnessed in a long time" while Lisa praised Tebar's "flexible, generous conducting." I'm siding with Lisa, and thought the orchestra sounded fabulous. Tebar's slightly eccentric, slower than usual tempos worked for me.

I am not a Puccini fan, partly out of resentment that his handful of operas have hogged the repertory for all of my operagoing life, and the pathetic dying heroine sentimentality of his plots is not a favorite. The music is gorgeous and complex though, and occasionally a performance will be a reminder of how potent his work can be. This is one of them.