Editorial Review:

Item Description:
The Metropolitan Opera's acclaimed Live in High-Definition series, which projects live performances into theaters across the globe, has met with unprecedented critical and commercial success and has made opera convenient and affordable to millions of viewers worldwide. Now, EMI Classics is proud to collaborate with The Met to release 6 new DVDs made from these broadcast performances.

Puccini's immortal classic of love and loss, with Franco Zeffirelli's sumptuous, iconic production and Nicola Luisotti's expressive conducting. Angela Gheorghiu, the leading Puccini soprano of our time, reprises the role of Mimì, while tenor Ramón Vargas gives a sensitive reading of Rodolfo. All these forces combine for a truly definitive performance of this beloved opera!

Amazon.com:
Franco Zeffirelli’s production of La Bohème is a perennial favorite at New York’s Metropolitan Opera and it retains its power in this 2008 performance. Its large-scale settings and especially an Act II set that looks as if half the 1890’s Paris Latin Quarter has been beamed direct to the MET. It’s been criticized as an over-the-top spectacle, but as well as bringing breath-taking realism to the stage, it’s bursting with energy and directorial flair. The individuals making up the large crowds milling in front of the Café Momus each have some little stage business to do, giving the audience the feeling of participating in the onstage street festival. Zeffirelli’s detailed directing even extends to the snow-filled Act III, where shadowy figures walk across the background hill in the distance while the principals are up front. While Zeffirelli’s conception tends to scant the opera’s intimate scenes in the theatre, on DVD those scenes make heightened impact. TV director Gary Halvorson’s establishing shots show a cutaway of the bohemians’ little garret precariously poised atop a sharply raked house, but he soon cuts to closeups of the playing space and the singers, creating a sense of warm interplay of personalities unavailable to the theatre audience.

The MET provides a luxurious cast to complement the sumptuous setting. Tenor Ramón Vargas is an excellent Rodolfo, singing with passion, imaginative phrasing, and coloring his beautiful lyric voice to fit the text. Mimi is Angela Gheorghiu, always a stellar singing actress. Here she sings with a sensitivity to match her Rodolfo, exquisitely coloring her voice, as in her Mi chiamano Mimi, where she thins her voice at the start and then opens it out to bloom when she sings of the approach of spring. As an actress, she’s best after the first Act, when she abandons the coy, girlish tics that seem out of place. In the last Act, she’s profoundly moving in the death scene, as is Vargas, who is touching in his portrayal of Rodolfo’s desperation and sense of loss. Baritone Ludovic Tézier’s Marcello is well sung, as is soprano Ainhoa Arteta’s Musetta, the latter delivering a sparkling Quando me’n vo’ in the Café Momus scene. Rodolfo’s pals, Oren Gradus as Colline and Quinn Kelsey as Schaunard, are excellent, and veteran bass Paul Plishka contributes some nice comic turns as Benoit and Alcindoro. --Dan Davis

La Bohème is an all-regions disc in 16:9 ratio. Sound options include PCM Stereo and DTS 5.1 Surround. Sung in Italian, subtitles include English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. Extras include backstage interviews by Renée Fleming and a short tribute, 'Zeffirelli at the Met.'









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Rating: - * Not quite great ... I had enthusiastically looked forward to this live HD transmission and attended the performance at a local movie theatre. While there is much to enjoy in this version, the shortcomings left me with an overall lukewarm impression. A big disappointment for me was the transposition of Rudolfo's famous aria, Che gelida manina, down a half step so that it peaks at a high B instead of a C. This is as good of a place as any to explain why I think transposition in a piece such as La Boheme just does not work. Puccini used an almost "through-composed" style in his operas (following the lead of Wagner), which means all of the musical moments are seamlessly attached. Key transitions, of course, are essential for the piece to come off as a unified whole. When one section is changed, as is the case here, the whole scene suffers. Even my brother, an avid Boheme fan but almost totally unschooled musically, remarked to me, "Something doesn't sound right." Of course it doesn't. It's not that I'm in love with high notes; it's the tonal flow that matters to me. What surprises me is that any conductor would go along with this common practice to accommodate the tenor. Also consider that this was a highly publicized live production seen all over the world and destined for immortality on DVD. Surely Ramon Vargas, a fine singer, could handle the higher tessitura for just one afternoon! Another gripe is the casting of two cameo roles, Benoit and Alcindoro, with the same bass, Paul Plishka. Sure, this would be fine in any other production, but here, with close-ups galore, it just looks cheap. Angela Gheorghiu stills delivers all her trademark vocal goods, which are nicely suited to her vulnerable and believable Mimi, but alas, her age is starting to show and the camera is not always friendly. I was most impressed with Frenchman Ludivoc Tezier as Marcello. Ironically, in this unmistakably Italian work, he offers an authentic Parisian flair with a deep portrayal of the beloved painter. All in all, these HD recordings are a treat, and I would not discount even this one. When I watch it, I think "If only..." So close, and yet so far. Rating: - * An excellent La Boheme ... This is another filming of Zeffirelli's well-known La Boheme production, but it still looks fabulous. I loved what conductor Luisotti is doing with the orchestra, and it is good to have a recording of Gheorghiu singing Mimi, while her voice is still in good shape. Ramon Vargas is a good Rodolfo and baritone Ludovic Tezier is excellent as Marcello. Highly recommended! Rating: - * Beautiful in HD... ... I saw this at the local cineplex in HD. These are wonderful events for those of us far from New York. We were thrilled by the performance. This is the same production (different singers) as the Pioneer DVD which has been available for a long time. When THIS "event" is available in Blu-Ray...I'll buy it. PS: And I already have the earlier DVD of the Zeffirelli production. Rating: - * A BOHEME to treasure !! Is it Rodolfo's or Mimi's Boheme ? ... Britten - Peter Grimes (The Metropolitan Opera HD Live Series) This DVD is a recording of the performance of La Boheme at the Met on April 5/2008 which was transmitted in HD worldwide. The first night was on 3/29th with the same cast, and the reviews in NY papers and the one here by Ivy Lin were based on the the opening night performance, not the one used on this disc. I attended the opening and agree with most of Ms. Lin's observations, i.e.: Vargas ' voice being "lyric,bright,ardent" hitting the high C in Che Gelida Manina "delicately"; Gheorghiu's aggressiveness and sluttishness, and her being out of sync in her Act1 aria. I do not agree with her claim that Vargas was too chubby and phlegmatic to be a believable Rodolfo, but I tend to agree with her comments about the Mimi. I cannot blame Ms. Lin because I myself found Ms.Gheorghiu to be trying hard to appear too romantic and taken with her man. She practically mauled him at the Cafe Momus with her exuberance. I did not attend the April 5th performance but I listened to the PBS radio broadcast and saw the moviecast of the event,and was very happy with the positive changes and improvement over the opening night performance. The excessive touching, smooching and other distractions were toned down, and the musical matters went on smoothly. This disc has outstanding video and audio worthy of the Met's 50-yr old classic Zeffirelli production with an ideal casting of Angela Gheorghiu and Ramon Vargas in the principal roles, supported by a fine mix of veterans and newcomers to the Met. Everyone in this line up is gifted with enormous talent, rich voice and fine musicality. The conductor is a young but highly talented Italian who certainly knows his Puccini, and one who knows how to accommodate his singers' ideas without sacrificing the integrity of the music. True, he used some rubatos and expansive tempos here and there but always to enhance rather than diminish the musical and dramatic values. He supported his singers sensitively and the orchestera responded beautifully. For some time, I was hoping the two singers would be cast together in any opera, not just Boheme, because I always believe that their voices are a perfect match in size, coloration, expressiveness and range. Plus, they possess truly beautiful voices, musical intelligence, innate musicality and elegant singing style. All of these qualities are evident on this disc. What I was not sure about was their chemistry together. Having seen the close-up of their facial expressions and subtle dramatic expressions, the total commitment and involvement throughut the opera by both artists and even split-second reactions, I do not know of any pair that could match such chemistry. Just incredible! They seem to inspire each other. Now I can understand why Gheorghiu, in Acts1&2, tried to convince everyone including the audience, her man and herself that she was REALLY in love with him. She was going to use this bit of realism to help her go through her slow death in Acts3&4 with searing intensity and poignancy. And Vargas responded with such convincing sincerity that one cannot help but feel for the unfortunate lovers.Gheorghiu has been acclaimed for her acting, in addition to her singing, throughout her career, but it's hard to tell who the better actor is of the two here. How about the singing ? Stunning, mesmerizing, magical, heartbreaking, ethereal. Stunning was Vargas when he discarded his lyric, bright-toned Che Gelida Manina on opening night and used his burnished, dark-hued spinto of late while preserving his customary warmth and sweetness. Mesmerizing was Gheorghiu in her Act1 aria with the movement of a graceful ballerina. Magical was the expansive Soave Fanciulla with Vargas visibly stunned at the sight of the radiant, beautiful Mimi bathed in moonlight and ushering in the sweeping splendor of this music with his magnificent sound. Heartbreaking was Mimi's farewell to the love of her life. Ethereal was Vargas' "alla stagion dei fior ", ethereal as the snow flakes falling on the lovers at the end of Act3. So, whose BOHEME is this ? Is it Mimi's or Rodolfo's ? Buy this DVD and find out. Enjoy the quest for the answer. Rating: - * One small quibble: Gheorghiu's Mimi ... This is one of the better DVD releases of the Met's recent enormously popular live HD moviecasts. The cast sings well, the production is one of Franco Zefferelli's less tacky creations, and La Boheme remains one of the singer-proof operas. Puccini's music is so affecting that even rather average singers can make the experience moving. Fortunately this La Boheme has assembled a cast that is far from average. I saw the production in its opening night with the same cast. I found both Vargas and Gheorghiu's voice to be a tad small for the large cavernous Met, but one cannot argue with the beauty of their voices. Gheorghiu's voice in particular has a dusky, husky, fragile sounding timbre that gives us the illusion of a consumptive. Her snow-white skin and dark black hair also adds to the appearance of someone who has been sick for quite awhile, although for my money no one was ever able to look as believably consumptive as Teresa Stratas in the earlier Met video with Jose Carreras. She has some unusual phrasing during "Si mi chiamano Mimi" -- she seems determined to take the aria at a slower pace than the conductor, and she also eschews the traditional portamenti. Vargas's voice is bright, ardent, and he's a sensitive musician. He hits the high C in "Che gelida manina" delicately and if his voice is a bit too small and lyric for the role he still always sounds beautiful. Ainhoa Arteta makes no particular impression as Musetta but she is much better than the screechy, over-the-hill Scotto in the Stratas/Carreras video. Dramatically, this Boheme does not work as well. Ramon Vargas is another in a long line of pleasantly plump and somewhat phlegmatic Rodolfos. (Caruso, Bjoerling, Tucker, Pavarotti all were way too plump to be entirely believable as a starving poet.) But he makes Rodolfo sweet and likable, which is more crucial than looks. More problematic is Angela Gheorghiu's Mimi. Her stage persona has a certain hardness, and she makes Mimi a rather aggressive pursuer of Rodolfo. She says backstage that Mimi "is not innocent" but she goes too far in the other direction, in my opinion. The minute she enters the garret, swaying her hips knowingly and with a somewhat smug smile, you know that this Mimi probably blew out her candle on purpose to meet Rodolfo. There is no reason Mimi should be a wilting innocent flower (after all, she does supposedly run off with a rich count, and early reviews of La Boheme upbraided Puccini for celebrating loose morals), but to make her so openly seductive kind of ruins the charm of the opening scene between Rodolfo and Mimi. At its best, it suggests two young people falling in love unexpectedly. These complaints are mostly in the first two acts. By the third act, Gheorghiu's Mimi has turned believably tragic. She is less fussy, and content to let her voice and the music speak for itself. The Act 3 quartet is very affecting. So in other words, another worthy addition to the Boheme video collection. Of the videos I have I love the Australian Opera production, and the Scotto/Pavarotti video. But as usual, Puccini's opera is the real winner. There is a reason why audiences all over the world never tire of this simple story of boy meets girl, boy loses girl. It's a perfect opera. Note: to respond to the review above, I did attend opening night but I also watched the moviecast. This review is I guess based on a mix of my own memories of opening night AND the moviecast.