In Boston Lyric Opera’s new ‘La bohème,’ the girl dies at the beginning – and it works – The Boston Globe

Boy meets woman, boy loses woman, boy and woman attempt to work issues out however woman dies: that is the wrenching emotional arc on the heart of Puccini’s “La bohème,” simply one of many world’s hottest and ceaselessly staged operas. However in Boston Lyric Opera’s new manufacturing of “Bohème,” a co-production with Detroit Opera and Spoleto Competition USA, director Yuval Sharon offers the tragedy a twist in probably the most literal sense; the acts are carried out in reverse order. The night opens with the harrowing closing act, which ends within the temporary reunion of lovers Rodolfo and Mimì earlier than Mimì dies from tuberculosis. It ends with the identical pair’s serendipitous first assembly, and the curtain comes down with the phrase “love” drifting via the Parisian evening.

In case you’re skeptical, you had the identical preliminary response I did. It’s an affordable gimmick, I believed initially: They need to do “Bohème” however they need to make it really feel new, so Sharon is taking part in it experimental simply because he can. I could have rolled my eyes whereas studying the Spoleto web site’s web page for the manufacturing: “What if life didn’t finish in dying, however a return to like?”

However after spending Friday night on the Emerson Colonial Theatre, I’m a naysayer no extra. As John Conklin’s minimal round set rotated between acts to actually flip again the clock, a fraction of T.S. Eliot’s “Little Gidding” resounded via my head: “We will not stop from exploration/and the tip of all our exploring/shall be to reach the place we began/ and know the place for the primary time.” Lengthy story brief: the backwards “Bohème” is definitely superb.

Even earlier than the unconventional strategy proved itself, the forged instantly made a stellar exhibiting. BLO newcomer Edward Parks confirmed up with a rowdy, charismatic Marcello, effectively matched with Chelsea Basler’s loose-cannon Musetta. As Rodolfo, Jesus Garcia’s excessive vary was considerably threadbare, however he inhabited the character with such a strong spectrum of emotion that it was not possible to not fall in love with Mimì — a very luminous Lauren Michelle, no notes — together with him.

William Guanbo Su and Benjamin Taylor’s Colline and Schaunard refused to fade into the background as so many Collines and Schaunards do exterior of the temporary moments within the highlight the libretto allots them. There was a heat, well-worn affection between them that made me marvel in the event that they had been boyfriend and boyfriend, and a change to one among Schaunard’s traces (normally he charms a serving maid; the surtitles on Friday indicated it was a butler) cemented that in my thoughts. I used to be upset that the scene wherein the bohemian boys trick their hapless landlord out of lease was omitted. I needed to spend extra time with that convivial quartet.

Way more issues labored than not in Sharon’s strategy, however there have been a number of troublesome spots. The set creaked loudly each time it rotated, which added unwelcome noise to a number of scenes which had been in any other case enhanced by the motion. The white-suited Wanderer, a talking character added for this manufacturing and performed right here by Opera unMet’s Marshall Hughes, was clearly meant to be an omniscient narrator a la the Stage Supervisor in “Our City” or Hermes in “Hadestown,” however a number of instances he interrupted the singing to muse (in English) “Now what would have occurred if…” a personality had made a distinct resolution? The music, and the wonderful forged’s portrayals of the characters, already invited the viewers to marvel that on their very own, in order that didactic commentary was initially complicated and tiresome by the tip.

Nevertheless, these had been small missteps in what was total an engrossing perspective shift for the warhorse opera, one which forged new gentle on a lot of its calling playing cards. Once I see “Bohème” figuring out that Mimì will die on the finish, I brace myself as quickly as she enters the garret together with her extinguished candle: at BLO, figuring out that Mimì had already died, every part else that performed out was suffused with a bittersweet environment. When Rodolfo cradled a hitherto-unseen pink bonnet in Friday’s Act 1, which is normally Act 4, it was instantly apparent that it was vital, not like its first look in the usual model. When a dying Mimì assured Marcello with a few of her final phrases that Musetta is an effective particular person, it didn’t really feel like a last-minute shoehorned second of redemption, however a query that may be duly answered. And when Mimì briefly hesitated to comply with Rodolfo to Cafe Momus because the Wanderer loomed ominously within the background, it not foreshadowed inevitable tragedy, however rebuked it within the title of residing life whereas it may well but be lived.

“If I didn’t know any higher, I’d suppose that was the best way it was initially written,” stated my live performance buddy, an operatic newcomer, as we left the theater.

So don’t stop from exploration: see this “Bohème,” and know the place for the primary time.

LA BOHÈME

At Emerson Colonial Theatre. By means of Oct. 2. 617-542-6772, www.blo.org

A.Z. Madonna will be reached at az.madonna@globe.com. Observe her on Twitter @knitandlisten.