Review: La Boheme - Leeds Youth Opera style!

The Carriageworks, Leeds, Friday, February 9, 2018

LEEDS Youth Opera (LYO) is unique. No other organisation offers children and young adults the same opportunities to take part in a fully staged opera. LYO's ambitious choice of repertoire elicits high musical and production values and makes few concessions to the tender years of the participants.

This bold company set themselves the additional challenge of singing La Boheme in the original language. Every member of the cast had not only learnt the Italian text but they infused the words with musicality - an astonishing achievement.

An intriguing twist is injected in trademark LYO style by shifting the Bohemians from the picturesque Latin Quarter of 19th century Paris to a teeming refugee camp housing 'citizens of nowhere.' This crowded setting allows the entire company of 48 performers to be seen as an integral part of the unfolding story - an important guiding principle for LYO.

In terms of domesticity, there isn't much difference between a freezing Parisian garret and the on-stage row of makeshift shacks and stalls. A camp canteen becomes the Cafe Momus where everyone celebrates Christmas Eve together. Menacing uniformed guards patrol the gated perimeter fence at the beginning of Act lll and, in the final scene, Mimi's deathbed is one of the many flattened cardboard boxes scattered across the stage.

The characters resonate in such a harsh environment in the hands of this committed cast under the visionary direction and choreography of Anita Adams. Mindful of the pressures on precious young voices, LYO deploy alternating principals. In what must be a first, Rodolfo and Mimi were sung by two talented young sopranos - Jasmine Caine and Amber Furssedon-Coates. For me, however, the young tenor Alex Schober as Rodolfo and Savia Iakovou as Mimi were more profoundly moving. Baritone Bertie Yates as Marcello and bass Phil Jackson as Colline sang in every performance. Here were two young voices of quite exceptional tonal richness. Soprano April Grime displayed vocal colour as an engaging and volatile Musetta, and the smaller cameos were similarly cast from strength.

LYO's splendid orchestra is handpicked for each opera by music director and conductor Tom Newall. The 33 young musicians in the Carriageworks pit created a glossy 'Puccini sound'; crystalline harp textures were beautifully etched against the lush orchestral backdrop.

LYO is one of the jewels in the city's cultural crown. This thriving organisation - and a dozen associated music and theatre groups - must be guaranteed an assured future at the Carriageworks.

by Geoffrey Mogridge