Grand Canal Theatre, Dublin
The last few years have been an exciting and unsettling time for opera in Ireland. Nothing about the future of opera is yet as clear as opera lovers would like it to be, but one of the outstanding variables was eliminated on Wednesday. That was the one concerning the viability of opera in Dublin’s new, 2,100-seater, Daniel Libeskind-designed Grand Canal Theatre.
This is a commercial receiving venue which opened in March, and from the start seemed to promise better facilities for the presentation of large-scale opera than any other venue in the capital, though, given the dire limitations of Dublin’s other venues, that wasn’t by any means a tall order.
The first operatic tryout of the new venue came when Scottish Opera brought Stewart Laing's updated production of Puccini's La Bohèmeto the venue for three nights. And the opening night represented another first, when Irish soprano Celine Byrne, winner of the Maria Callas Grand Prix in 2007, made her first appearance in Ireland in a major role.
First impressions of the venue are that it works. The sound from my seat in the centre of the second row of the circle was clear and on the dry side. It wasn’t, as singers and listeners would like it to be, flattering. It certainly wasn’t either warm or full. But it was perfectly viable.
If you were troubled by the balances between stage and pit, with Francesco Corti’s conducting appearing to take too little account of the singers, well that’s probably because that’s how it actually was. That’s how it sounded to reviewers who wrote about the production in Scotland earlier this year, and that’s how it sounded to me, when I heard it at the Grand Opera House in Belfast last Thursday.
Laing’s production updates the setting to contemporary, or near-contemporary New York, and it takes the updating seriously, re-writing surtitles to match the production rather than staying faithful to the original.
Why New York? Well, the city does have a real TB problem to make Mimì’s disease a realistic proposition, and the pre-Obama US healthcare situation would fit the plot too.
But Laing’s interest seemed to be in knitting in ideas about loft-created, computer video-art (even the burning script of Act I was reduced to flames on a screen), which allowed him to turn the café of Act II into an art gallery, with Alcindoro’s bill (escalated by damage to some of the artworks) arriving on a wireless credit-card terminal.
In the end, though, it was all a bit too strained, and the boisterous camaraderie of the four bohemians just didn’t gel. It was the intimate confrontations and confessions of Act III, placed outside and inside a gallery exhibiting Marcello’s work (the perspective for the audience rotated through 180 degrees), that worked best.
And what of the singing? Well, the night belonged to Celine Byrne. She alone had the voice to ride the orchestral weight that Corti presented to the singers, and also the adaptability to stay in step with both composer and conductor.
Nadine Livingston was an energetically flighty Musetta, and Christian Sist’s farewell to his coat (sorry, print of a coat) showed some lovely tone. But Alessandro Liberatore’s Rodolfo was just that bit too vocally effortful.
It was Byrne who provided the thrills. Her Mimì was subtle, affecting and credible. She poured out Puccini’s soaring lines with power and tonal beauty, and she inflected many an inward moment with heart-stopping acuity.
She has personality and presence, and she connects.
What sickness is it that ails the artistic directors of Irish opera companies that it fell to Scottish Opera to present this already popular singer to her native public in a major role?
