Review: A Chicago ‘La Bohème' at Lyric Opera turns winter into spring into winter

Chicago Tribune

16-03-2025

Saturday's spring opener at the Lyric Opera of Chicago took place as a fool's spring gave way to the reality of the calendar, as a green sea of St. Patrick's Day revelers, clad for the hopes of April, discovered just how quickly March can turn frigid on you. The audience for 'La Bohème' entered the doors of the great opera house in one season and exited in entirely another.
Giacomo Puccini's Mimì, who understood the power of seasonal change better than anyone in the operatic canon, surely would have sympathized, singing as she does about how loneliness is most acute in winter, when even the sun denies its companionship. She claims that the first kiss of April (from her lover? from the sun?) will belong to her. Not that such a day is ever promised.
Still, Melanie Bacaling's staging of 'La Bohème' — this Rogers Park-born director's debut at anything like this level — certainly has its heart more in April than March, especially given the presence of a swath of Uniting Voices of Chicago singers (formerly the Chicago Children's Choir) joining the Lyric Opera Chorus and the optimistic take from its two stars, the American lyric soprano Ailyn Pérez, also a Chicago native, and the Samoan tenor Pene Pati.
The latter makes a strikingly well-received Lyric debut, seemingly relishing every moment, every note, his voice akin to a pint of Guinness in a cozy pub, or a surprisingly sensual morning. The Canadian conductor Jordan de Souza understands what part the Lyric Orchestra must play here, and so it does.
Pati's Rodolfo worries for Mimì, one discerns, but even in her final moments, there he is in the corner of the garret, smiling away, dreaming of a recovery that never comes. Pérez's Mimì doesn't seem to worry about seduction either way; in this production, Rodolfo is the calm from the storm of her life. The notion of refuge is there in how they sing to each other, and how they dance in the Parisian snow, two sunny dreamers, one better off than the other but both turning to La Vie Bohème as refugees from the harshness of the wintery world beyond the Café Momus.
Under its former general director Anthony Freud, the Lyric pursued its post-pandemic recovery on twin tracks: a traditional experience here, paired with something that pushes the envelope there. The latter slot this spring is occupied by Missy Mazzoli's contemporary piece 'The Listeners,' opening March 30, and the former with this lush 'La Bohème,' new to Chicago but with sets by Gerard Howland created for the Los Angeles and Dallas Operas some years ago. Howland did add a 'Waiting for Godot'-like tree for the Parisian winter exterior, but even the falling snowflakes are lit by Duane Schuler as if this were 'White Christmas,' which I don't mean as a pejorative. Costumes originally were designed by the late British designer Peter J. Hall.
Lyric, of course, has produced this most accessible of operatic titles — it was the source for Jonathan Larson's musical 'Rent' and any fan of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical repertory will hear familiar notes and chords — on and off for some 70 years. It has been a staple of the Wacker Drive repertoire since besuited and bedecked Chicagoans of the era of the first Mayor Daley came to dab their eyes.
Freud clearly decided to lean into 'La Bohème's' entry-level popularity: there is a lobby exhibition of the piece's history at the Lyric and, more importantly, he predicted that the affection for the title would be a way to protect a new director like Bacaling, as well as to support a Chicago-born star (who is singing as Mimì several times around the world this year), an energetic young conductor, the Chicago-based newcomer Ian Rucker (who plays a pleasingly goofy Schaunard), and the 36-year-old Lyric favorite Will Liverman, who essays with some depth the jealous Marcello. It all paid off; the presence of the children's choir on stage was part of the reason for so many children in the house, I suspect, but it added to the sense of communal enjoyment as little kids watched and, one hopes, felt.
The splendid soprano Gabriella Reyes seemed to catch this mood when she came out for her bow with Musetta's little dog, the two grinning from ear to ear, as was Peixin Chen, although the sharp-edged bass is the singer who, as Colline, gives the show at least some of its requisite gravitas.
Puccini fans will leave well satisfied. 'I am always fine until that one chord,' I heard one departing woman say behind me as she protected herself against the sudden chill with the warmth of what sounded like an emotional capitulation with a familiar cue.
La Vie Bohème, indeed.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
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Review: 'La Bohème' (3.5 stars)
When: Through April 12
Where: Lyric Opera of Chicago, 20 N. Wacker Drive
Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes