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Feb.27,2005 -Mar.6,2005 |
Letting Puccini Shine
COC director believes in letting the music tell the story
By Sarah B. Hood
Originally Published: 2005-01-23
La Bohème is one of the world's most popular and beloved operas, and also the most often performed work in the entire Canadian Opera Company repertoire. (It has been mounted on the mainstage thirteen times.) Even non-opera fans are familiar with its melodies, and Mimi's heartbreaking death has certainly contributed to the generally held conception of opera plots as melodramatic and emotionally overblown. So how does a contemporary director approach La Bohème in order to make it fresh for newcomers and aficionados alike?
For Robert McQueen, who has taken on the task, this is the first time directing this work. He previously served as assistant director for the COC productions of Norma and Pelléas et Mélisande, and has recently directed Il barbiere di Siviglia and Turandot for Arizona Opera, as well as a tour of L'elisir d'amore for Vancouver Opera. He was also associate director of Toronto's Mamma Mia!, among a number of musical theatre projects. "The good thing is I don't come with any history," he says. "I think the job of any director is to tell a good story."
McQueen doesn't believe that standard operas need any staging tricks to please an audience. "Often, I think it's 'Let's be as weird as possible,'" he says, "But the director's job is to illuminate the intent of the playwright, not to show off."
Mimi's famous demise is both a high point and a challenge for anyone staging La Bohème. "How do you handle this death?" McQueen asks rhetorically. "My feeling is that the garret becomes more like a hospital death room. These are young people, and their friend is dying. On many recordings there's a lot of wailing at the end, and I said 'We're not going to do that! We're going to be very simple and pure.'"
Despite its historical setting, "this is still about a group of wild artists living in complete chaos, whose lives are changed," he continues. "In the book, the boys realize that Mimi's death means an end to that kind of bubble they've been living in."
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