‘La boheme’ at the Dubai Opera: A timeless art

“I make sure I don’t laugh too much,” says Jessica Muirhead, struggling not to giggle.

The gregarious soprano, who plays Mimi in Puccini’s iconic La boheme, which runs in Dubai from March 9-11, says prepping for her role requires a great deal of disapline. “Being a singer, it’s kind of a strange thing, because you have this instrument inside your body, which you are using all day, anyway, so I make sure I don’t speak too much, not laugh too much [when I’ve got a performance coming up] — that’s always the worst for me, because it uses a lot of voice,” she explains.

Before the tragic tale of penniless poet Rudolfo and the damned love-of-his-life Mimi goes on stage, Gulf News tabloid! spoke to the leads, played by Muirhead (on March 10) and young tenor Dominick Chenes, who talked friendship on set, relevance of show, and love at first sight.

Muirhead punctuates her sentences with giggles, and explains the work it takes to be able to belt out the tale of love and loss convincingly every night. “The most important thing for me is sleep. So I just make sure that I get sleep, and I’m really well behaved when I have a performance coming up, so no spicy food, no dairy products, that kind of thing.” Besides that, before a performance, she says, “It’s all about stretching, and warming up my voice, and yoga is great for focusing my mind and getting my breathing centred and grounded and also my body.”

For Chenes, who’s been reffered to as a “breakout star” and “powerhouse lyric tenor” by Huffington Post, getting into character may involve some popcorn. “Sometimes when you prep for the role you just have to kind of have to take a chance and watch a movie that deals with the same emotions and try to pull from the characters in them,” he explains

La boheme, based on the novel La Vie de Boheme by Henri Murger, was originally adapted into an opera in 1896. So is it still relevant? “Absolutely. Absolutely. When you break it down, it doesn’t matter what time it’s in. In fact, our production is not set in the original time that was written [1840s] — we have set it in 1913 and it is just as relevant in 1913 as it is now in 2017. It is a love story... When you break it down, it’s about struggling artists and how they make ends meet, how they live each day to its fullest, as much as they can. What happens with my character, Mimi, is that she’s ill, well, you see that all the time, too... it’s just a beautiful love story. Boy meets girl, they fall in love, there’s always something in the way, and in this case there’s a lack of money and the illness,” says Muirhead.

Chenes, who plays Rudolfo on March 9 and 11, concours, “The emotions and feelings and beauty of the music is timeless.”

“It’s a great opera for people to come and experience, because even though its set a hundred years ago, the only thing that changes is the costume and the time period, but the people and the beauty of the art is still very fresh.”

And while the story is a tragedy and may leave you a bit watery in the eye department, the actors say the production actually has an inspirational message. Asked which song perfectly sums up the show, Muirhead says: “MiMi’s first aria, Si, mi chiamano Mimi, [where]she tells the story of herself to Rudolfo who she’s just met — and they’ve fallen in love instantly — and she says to him, ‘Hi, my name is Mimi, but they call me Luchia. I live the simple life, I embroider flowers, but I live on the top floor, I have a simple apartment and I live alone, but when the first sunrise of spring happens I feel like it’s all mine and I own it.’ I would say that sums up the opera for me — you don’t have to have money to appreciate the beauty in life.”

The soprano says every time she thinks of this, it gives her goose bumps.

Chenes says the message of the opera is clear: “Love life while you have it, because in the blink of an eye, something that you love could be taken from you.”

And the show is fun, too, says Chenes, not as dark as it appears at fist sight. When he recalls his happy moments prepping for the role, his voice is warm. He says the actor playing Mimi [on March 9 and 11, Marina Costa-Jackson] is his best friend, and about the rest of the cast: “A great moment is when you get to know the cast more and become friends in real life, it’s lovely because then on stage that relationship translates and you become friends on stage.”

And the prolific singer knows what he’s talking about. He’s played everyone from Pinkerton in Madame Butterfly to Don Jose in Carmen.

When we speak to Muirhead, we can’t help but wonder if she can really identify with her character when her work is a (struggling) artist’s. Doesn’t the poet offer more of a connection? She says, “Every character is so real in this opera. I think we’ve all experienced things that they’ve all experienced. I remember being in school and thinking, ‘How am I ever going to pay my rent?’, ‘How am I ever going to make ends meet?’... But then there are times when it’s like, ‘I just got paid, I can go shopping... which is what I’ve been doing [in Dubai]’.”

The cast of Welsh National Opera, had been in the UAE for two days when we spoke to them on March 8, and said they were enjoying the desert immensely. Muirhead, who is from Canada, said she’s never been in the desert before. “I love it. I haven’t been anywhere where there’s such a mix of ages and styles and cultures … it’s blown me away.”

Don’t miss it!

La boheme runs from March 9 to March 11, and tickets start at Dh300 on Dubaiopera.com

source : gulfnews