Many productions of La bohème start off on a losing streak with a garret full of bohemians who strain the audience’s credibility beyond breaking point. Often they are too old to pass muster as tyro practitioners of their various arts; sometimes they seem too obviously free of real money worries.

But the new production at Grange Park Opera, thanks to well-judged casting and some fine acting, supplies a quartet of flat-sharers whose attitudes and antics always ring true.

Their joshing rapport is evident in the Act I highjinks leading up to their mock horror at the extra marital activities of their ageing landlord Benoit, given a fine comic portrayal by Nicholas Folwell, who in traditional style also shows us Musetta’s amusingly put-upon sugar-daddy Alcindoro.

Very well handled, too, under the director Stephen Medcalf, is the larkiness of Act IV – including the mock duel between the philosopher Colline (Nicholas Crawley) and musician Schaunard (Quirijn de Lang) so tragically interrupted by the arrival of the dying Mimi.

What of she? Happily from Susana Gaspar we see and hear another very strong performance, if this is not an absurd way to describe the presentation of a character whose tremulous vulnerability is evident from her first entrance, extinguished candle clutched in that tiny, frozen hand.

Singing of this, in the heart-stopping aria Che gelida manina, her soon-to-be lover, the poet Rodolfo (Gianluca Terranova) at last bursts the banks of the flood of melody – as it has been described – which has been building since Mimi’s entrance. This continues – gloriously here under the careful control of conductor Stephen Barlow – in her own Sì, mi chiamano Mimi and the love duet in the moonlight that follows. The melting moments find the players of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra on splendid form.

The later vicissitudes in Rodolfo and Mimi’s relationship are compellingly explored, as are those involving the opera’s other pair of lovers, the painter Marcello (Brett Polegato) and the flighty Musetta (Kelebogile Besong). Again we hear much to delight, including a barnstorming account of Musetta’s provocative waltz in the Cafe Momus.

The well-presented garret of Jamie Vartan’s adaptable design is altered to suggest the various other settings by use of drapes and the like, while its basic structure remains intact, with musical instruments and other kit dangling above. Among the paraphernalia is a second wood-burning stove – for which, in this opera, read poetry-burning – which is employed to emit snowflakes, rather feebly, on the wintry customs house of Act III.

There is also some business involving a dressing-up box, which is possibly intended to suggest that what we are watching is all play acting. But I didn’t really ‘get’ this, so decided it was best ignored.

Oxford Mail:

  • From left: Gianluca Terranova (Rodolfo), Brett Polegato (Marcello), Nicholas Folwell (Benoit), Nicholas Crawley (Colline) and Quirijn de Lang (Schaunard)

Grange Park Opera’s performances of La bohème continue till July 17. The season’s programme also includes productions of Saint-Sa ëns’s Samson et Dalila, Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, and Fiddler on the Roof, featuring Bryn Terfel.

For information go to grangeparkopera.co.uk