Véliz’s rich voice sparks HGO’s painterly “Bohème”

Sat Jan 25, 2025 at 1:58 pm
By Steven Brown
Michael McDermott and Yaritza Véliz star in Puccini’s La Boheme at Houston Grand Opera. Photo: Lynn Lane

Mother Nature helped set the scene for La bohème. Early this week, she sent Houston—which isn’t accustomed to serious winter weather—a real-life blast of the chill and snow that beset Puccini’s young bohemians.

When Houston Grand Opera’s production opened Friday at Wortham Theater Center, Rodolfo and Marcello’s laments in the opening scene about freezing weather must have met receptive ears.

HGO’s staging took over from there. The company treated Puccini’s romance-cum-tragedy to a young, lively cast and an essentially traditional but inventive production.

Admittedly, the performance hit a couple of snags right off. The show curtain, evoking belle époque sketches of women’s faces, balked at going up. The supertitles, after a tardy and abortive start, remained absent for the first eight or 10 minutes.

But the bohemians’ initial antics—such as setting fire to Rodolfo’s manuscript and stuffing it into a stove for heat—don’t demand word-for-word understanding anyway. The translations were up and running by the time Yaritza Véliz’s Mimì arrived, and Puccini’s story began in earnest.

Other sopranos may bring the role more vocal acting—capturing the ailing heroine’s frailty in the sounds of their voices, for instance. But the Chilean soprano, who portrayed Violetta in Verdi’s La Traviata for Dallas Opera last fall, poured out rich, glowing tone that went straight to the heart of Puccini’s music. When Mimì introduced herself to Rodolfo and the audience in her Act 1 aria, Véliz savored its gentle turns, and conductor Karen Kamensek helped by keeping the orchestra hushed and unhurried. But in the aria’s climax—the soaring phrases evoking the sun’s arrival in the springtime—Véliz’s voice welled up, filling the theater with its warmth.

As the story unfolded, surges like that again and again radiated Mimì’s goodness and nobility.

Only in the lower range did Véliz’s singing lack heft. That limited the fervor of a couple of key moments, such as the dying Mimì’s avowal to Rodolfo that her love for him is “as deep and infinite as the sea.”

Tenor Michael McDermott—a member of HGO’s Butler Studio training program—brought the role of Rodolfo a bright, vibrant voice that filled his share of the bohemians’ hijinks with fun.

But when it came time for Puccini’s flights of melody, McDermott sounded pressed. His tone was on the slender side—which was especially apparent when he sang alongside Véliz—and his top range was effortful. In McDermott’s “Che gelida manina,” all the notes were there, but the passion and magnetism were absent.

The rest of the bohemians were a boisterous crew, lusty in their singing and light on their feet.

Baritone Edward Parks brought an especially hefty, resonant voice to the role of the painter Marcello. Not only did Parks help propel the opening scene’s antics, but in the climax of Act 2’s Christmas Eve revelries—Marcello’s big moment—he opened his voice up to full throttle and dominated the entire ensemble.

As the philosopher Colline, bass-baritone Cory McGee participated in all the cutting-up but occasionally took on a more dignified profile: He gave breadth and dignity to Colline’s farewell to the overcoat that’s destined for the pawnshop. Baritone Navasard Hakobyan added another sturdy voice as the musician Schaunard.

Marcello’s tempestuous sometime sweetheart, Musetta, came across as more than the mere flirt she sometimes seems, thanks to soprano Brittany Renee.

Yes, Renee delivered parts of Musetta’s “Waltz Song” with flashiness and abandon. But the waltz’s opening had an aria of sweetness, as if Musetta were showing that charisma takes more than one form.

And in the finale, Renee’s Musetta took on an entirely different aura, gracious and compassionate with the dying Mimì.

In the comic roles of Benoit and Alcindoro, respectively the bohemians’ landlord and one of Musetta’s admirers, baritone Héctor Vásquez contrasted Benoit’s boasting with Alcindoro’s befuddlement. And tenor Demetrious Sampson, Jr. made a big impression with only a few trumpeting notes as the toy vendor Parpignol

Besides helping Véliz and others bring out Puccini’s musical poetry, conductor Kamensek led the HGO Orchestra to play with vivacity, atmosphere and impact—a particular accomplishment amid Puccini’s hairpin turns from mood to mood. The HGO Chorus added spirit to the Christmas Eve scene, and at the start of Act 3, a handful of the women lent a cheery lightness to the moments spotlighting peasant women going to work.

Director John Caird and designer David Farley, whose production HGO last presented in 2018, set up all this vividly.

Caird’s staging fills the bohemians’ cutting-up scenes with giddy action, then gives calm and simplicity to the moments of romance or seriousness. Mimì and Rodolfo’s first scene together, played out mainly as a simple chat at a table, is as powerful as it is quiet.

Designer Farley, perhaps taking his cue from Marcello’s occupation, fills the stage with an array of paintings evoking the garret or café rather than three-dimensional sets. Besides the thematic link, this makes it possible—because the paintings are adroitly grouped on platforms—for the scene changes to take place in mere moments, before the audience’s eyes.

So this La bohème unfolds with only one intermission, and Puccini’s drama seems more swift and powerful than ever.

La bohème runs through Feb. 14. houstongrandopera.org


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