Bohemian, no rhapsody

Director Chen Xinyi came up with a very strange concept: She transported the staging from Paris to the 798 Art District in Beijing, but not the action itself. Instead of making it a Chinese story, which would have enhanced the universal message of the opera, she designed it as if a group of Italian opera singers descended on Beijing and put on the show in a quintessentially Beijing tourist destination. Except for two lead performances imported from Italy, though, this is a completely local production, and nothing is more jarring than seeing 19th-century costumes in an erstwhile Communist factory workshop, in which political slogans are still distinct.

The performance I saw on May 4, the last of the run, was a disaster. Act 1 was brought to a standstill not by the two consecutive arias but by the crew's extremely loud and annoying backstage chitchat. The conductor even had to resort to yelling four-letter words to quench audience unrest.

Tenor Warren Mok also fared poorly in Act I. He does not possess the lyrical beauty of, say, Zhang Jianyi, and might well have not warmed up enough. Also, the staging for the love duet was bizarre in that the couple should have started from center stage and gradually moved off stage, as is the norm, but here it was more or less reversed.

The performance did not come to life until Ma Mei's Musetta burst on the scene in Act II. Ma had such a strong presence and powerful voice she stole the show with her boisterous, vixen personality.

Thankfully, the show was redeemed after the intermission. The Act III set alone galvanized the audience as snow engulfed a house and bridge. Yao Hong's Mimi showed a fragility and vulnerability so expressive and tear-jerking it didn't matter what language she was uttering. Yao is perhaps the best singing actress in China today. As usual, she threw herself into the role without abandon. By Act IV, she had captivated the audience. There was not a dry eye in the house.

The story of Bohemian artists is by no means limited to fin-de-siecle Paris. The universality of the central story - struggling artists, low-rent places and all - is here botched by a half-baked premise. Had the story been localized a la Jonathan Larsen's Rent, this opera could have an unstoppable run and become a cultural phenomenon. I'm not suggesting turning it into musical theater but the action should at least have been appropriately localized, as is the title translation. But blame it on the director, not the singers.

For the rest of this opera season, Puccini's Turandot will be revived from May 21-24; Bizet's Carmen May 28-30; Puccini's Madama Butterfly June 4-7 and Verdi's Rigoletto June 18-21. In between, several local revolutionary operas will provide an interesting contrast.