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The bohemian and his dear one. My "La Boheme" and I! [ Author Michael Daniel Watson ] [ From category THE Articles ] [ Subcategory OperaRail 2015 ] [ Translator Catalina Popescu ] [ Article date: 2015-11-05 ] [ From city Bucuresti ] [ Country România ]   I am "the bohemian". My dear one is "La Boheme", Puccini`s opera. The title might seem arrogant - joining me, a normal person, with a world masterpiece - but it isn`t. The article refers strictly to me and to how I perceived Puccini`s " La Boheme" over the years. I saw "La Boheme" for the first time at the end of 2002 at Bucharest National Opera House, whose director was the big former international tenor Ludovic Spiess. I left the show very disappointed! The music seemed to me "too long", and the action childish (in this regard I haven`t changed my opinion very much! ), Mimi dying almost for no reason in the last act and not because a certain event had happened in the subject of the opera. (Expressed in a language closer to that of the favelas, this idea would be "no poison in the soup, no knife in the head, no bullet in the face, what`s this? " :-) ) After this experience, I confess that I didn`t intend to see "La Boheme" again in this life, but... One day, Master Spiess called me to his house to fix some computer problems. While chatting, I asked him what had been his favourite role. I was expecting Radames the warrior, Manrico the minstrel, in the worst case another... Verdian character, but his answer vas very disappointing to me then: Rudolfo from "La Boheme"! I said that Master Spiess cannot be wrong and, with the first occasion - showed up at Craiova, a town dear to me -, I saw Puccini`s "La Boheme" again, this time determined to like it. :-) Buuuut... this time I didn`t leave the Opera more satisfied, either! I said "That`s it! It doesn`t suit me, I don`t understand it and that`s all! ", but I was frustrated, as I had enjoyed the other operas by Puccini, and especially because I had really wanted to like... Master Spiess`s favourite role! :-) In 2012, I succeeded to obtain a ticket at Bayerische StaatsOper, the Munchen Opera House, to see Angela Gheorghiu on the scene, a first time for me. The show was... "La Boheme" by Puccini! My honour was at stake, for I had decided never to see "La Boheme" again! :-) ) ) I remember that then I even thought a sentence... that amuses me a lot now, "For Angela Gheorghiu, I can even swallow La Boheme! " :-) And... I swallowed it! And even more, I would have swallowed Angela, too! :-) That evening in Munchen, July 20th 2012, was one of my most beautiful evenings at the Opera, a candidate with real chances to the title of the most beautiful! It was for me an evening and a decisive moment, exactly like those in the Hollywood movies. Angela Gheorghiu was divine! I was listening to her, drinking her in, I was proud inside that a Romanian was enchanting those stiff Germans, accustomed only with the best voices, I was singing with her, suffering with her, dying with her! Moreover, I found afterwards that 4 of the 5 main roles were interpreted by Romanians - Mimi (Angela Gheorghiu), Marcello (Levente Molnar), Musetta (Laura Tatulescu) and... the conductor :-) (Dan Ettinger) - the only "intruder" being Rudolfo himself, wonderfully interpreted instead by the Maltese Joseph Calleja! Master Spiess had been right! That evening, faar, far away, in the capital of Bavaria, I fell in love with "La Boheme"! And, to be honest, that evening I fell in love with Angela, too! :-) That year, after Munchen, I also saw "La Boheme" ay Glyndebourne (England), Milan (again with Angela Gheorghiu) and... Bucharest! Then... Craiova, Oslo (the best show with reinterpreted script and direction I have ever seen! ), London (twice in the same day!, being the only opera I`ve seen on the scene twice in the same day! ), Torre del Lago Puccini (home at "La Boheme" :-) ), Budapest, Frankfurt am Main, Hamburg (another memorable evening, with Teodor Ilincăi and... other two Romanians in the distribution that I "discovered" after the show - Tatiana Lisnic and Alin Anca), Timisoara, Macerata. Almost useless to say that it was the opera I have seen the most often in the last three years! And each time I "swallowed" it with unutterable and unconcealed pleasure. :-) Although I had so many bohemian events..., the peak only now comes! "La Boheme" that I saw at Oslo is, I repeat intentionally, the best show with reinterpreted script and direction I have ever seen!, being even certain that there cannot be a better "rearrangement" of an opera action! I wrote about that show in the article "Boema belissima la Opera din Oslo" (Beautiful Boema at the Oslo Opera House), and that article is also the first among those about which I can say I am proud of. But the idea is I was envious! I liked so much the ideas from Oslo, that, somehow, I looked back to them with a certain vexation and envy that it hadn`t been me to come up with them! :-) (From the Oslo article: "I don`t like fancy modern mountings. This one, though, conquered me entirely! ") One April day (2015) I opened on YouTube the movie "Boema" with Rolando Villazon and Anna Netrebko. I had seen it before, but this was only a reason to see it again. The movie begins with some shots on the streets of old Paris, while the distribution is presented. A child is playing in the thin snowfall in the middle of a small cobblestone pedestrian street. From an upper storey window a madam shows up and starts flicking a coat. In that moment the child gets scarred, gets up and, runs away and in that instance, too, boom! the music starts. In that moment, too, in that moment, boom! I SAW MY "LA BOHEME"!!! I stopped the movie and started writing! And for one hour I wrote and wrote, reinterpreting and rearranging details from the opera the way I had envied the Norwegians for having succeeded to do! I kept the first version, what I wrote then as a continuous flow at gunfire speed, and afterwards, in the following days, weeks, months, I added new and new elements, creating... a show! If I seem arrogant, you are jumping into conclusions! The arrogance, madness, desire or "ideality" follow only from now on! I am not going to write details about what I created. (Only two people know them, the most important ones, ... my lover and my wife, of course! :-) ) ) ) And I am not going to make them public now - only the period where I "moved" it: during the Romanian communism, cold and dark - because... I want to stage my "La Boheme"! To direct it, to materialise it, to exist! And if I succeed in finding an opera director insane enough - I beg your pardon, open enough :-) - to trust an unknown apprentice, I`ll invite you to the show. (I am certain the opera directors will fight over the subject, especially after I wrote "insane enough"! :-) ) ) ) If not, at a given moment I`ll send it as an article... my most authentic article. And possibly the last one. Distribution variants: :-) Rudolfo: Teodor Ilincai Mimi: Angela Gheorghiu / Elena Mosuc / Tatiana Lisnic Marcello: Stefan Ignat / Iordache Basalac / Levente Molnar Musetta: Laura Tatulescu / Irina Iordachescu Colline: Adrian Sampetrean / Alin Anca Schaunard: Alcindoro: Ioan Hollender Dirijor: Ciprian Teodorascu / Adrian Soare / Dan Ettinger I am dreaming like a bohemian! :-) PS: The photo album contains images from various shows "La Boheme" I have seen in Europe.

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30-09-2024: Aida storica 1913
"Aida" in Verona 100 + 1. A hundred emotions plus one, yours!

Arena di Verona, the most Italian place on Earth!

These are the slogans through which Arena di Verona has chosen this year, 2024, to promote the Opera Festiva
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[ Author Michael Daniel Watson ]
From category THE Articles

21-09-2024: Aida shines brightly at the Arena di Verona
The Arena di Verona is also presenting a modern version of Aida, in addition to the old but wonderful version from 1913. And it looks something like this!

The stage is tilted, and the floor is made of glass. In the center, a giant hand
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[ Author Michael Daniel Watson ]
From category THE Articles

11-09-2024: Tosca a Verona 2024
Mario`s painting is huge, but... it`s on the floor, lying on its side. Mario doesn`t actually paint it, but "works" on some sketches. In the center of the stage you can see some huge shapes/objects, covered with black cloths. There are also two canno
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[ Author Michael Daniel Watson ]
From category THE Articles

01-09-2024: “La boheme” at Arena di Verona
Arena di Verona. We arrive. We park. We get off. We take a few pictures with the Arena in the background, then ... a heavy rain starts! We take shelter under a tree. :-) I don`t think the show is happening anymore, but we can`t leave either, so we ju
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[ Author Michael Daniel Watson ]
From category THE Articles

20-12-2023: Spoletta, symbol of Hungarian anti-communist resistance
Budapest Opera House was inaugurated in 1884 to be a competition for Vienna StaatsOper. It is localised in the center of the hungarian capital, just a few minutes behind St. Stefan cathedral, the bigest church of the city. In 2022 is was open again a
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[ Author Michael Daniel Watson ]
From category THE Articles

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