Atmospheric La Boheme with Yoncheva and Castronovo

Sonya Yoncheva and Charles Castronovo star in an atmospheric La Boheme at the Royal Opera House.

Puccini’s opera of passion, friendship and heartbreak is one of the best-loved operas worldwide. Its music includes such treats as Rodolfo and Mimì’s Act I arias and duet, the ebullient choruses of Act II and Mimì’s heartrending death scene. Richard Jones’s recent production for The Royal Opera perfectly captures the vulnerability of youth amid the harshness and glamour of a big city. The atmospheric designs, by Stewart Laing, evoke both the poverty of the bohemians’ attic home and the splendour of Paris’s shopping arcades on Christmas Eve.

The opera blends tragedy and comedy, the soulful and the spirited, into a powerful encapsulation of the intenseness of life’s experiences to its young would-be artists and their lovers, in this recording performed by a winning cast under the baton of Emmanuel Villaume.

When Rodolfo, a penniless poet, meets Mimì, a seamstress, they fall instantly in love. But their happiness is threatened when Rodolfo learns that Mimì is gravely ill.

Rodolfo is painfully aware that he cannot afford the medicine and care Mimì needs, and so separates from her. As her sickness takes hold Mimì returns to Rodolfo’s garret. They are joyfully reunited – but, despite the care of Rodolfo and his friends, Mimì dies.

Genre Opera
Production year 2020
Recording location The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London
Stage Director Richard Jones
TV Director Jonathan Haswell
Sets Stewart Laing
Soloist Sonya Yoncheva
Soloist Charles Castronovo
Orchestra / Band The Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Conductor Emmanuel Villaume
Choreography by Sarah Fahie