This may be the fourth time I have seen La Boheme at the Lyric. It is my all-time favorite and gets me misty every time. The 2025 version is advertised as new to Chicago and lives up to the promise of a fresh approach to what life may have been like in the Belle Epoque. The original was set around 1830, but composer Giacomo Puccini wrote it between 1893 and 1895. Director Melanie Bacaling creates a vibrant depiction of Paris in 1888. The Eiffel Tower is mid-construction, and the audience is immersed in the world of artists and what would be called hipsters today.
The cast of this production is in the prime of their careers. Tenor Pene Pati and soprano Ailyn Pérez play the central characters, Rodolfo and Mimi. This is Pati's Lyric debut, and he is spectacular. He easily hits the sweet high notes with a subtlety that caught me off guard. I could not pinpoint what I was hearing, and then it occurred to me that the quality of Pati's voice could not be taught because it is pure talent. It is a flesh and blood instrument that is mesmerizing until the finale.
Ailyn Pérez embodies Mimi as the shy but knowing girl who sells her silk flowers to the grand ladies of Paris. The role of Mimi requires a soprano who can go from a soaring high note to a whisper. Pérez has fantastic acting ability and great chemistry with Pati's Rodolfo. It would not give anything away to say that Mimi and Rodolfo fall hard for each other and dwell in the demi-monde. They depend on the bourgeois class to stay warm, eat, and keep the landlord at bay.
Will Liverman performs an excellent Marcello. He has comic chops and a best-bro vibe with Pati's Rodolfo. The opening scenes are hilarious as Rodolfo sacrifices pages of his play to the stove. They fight like kids over one blanket and rib each other over their artistic pursuits. Liverman has become a spotlight performer at Lyric as an alum of the Ryan Opera Center, a highly respected training program. Liverman was mesmerizing as Charles in Terence Blanchard's Fire Shut Up in My Bones. He also wrote and starred in The Factotum as an urban take on The Barber of Seville at the Lyric. His range in singing and acting is at the top of the opera field.
Liverman's Marcello meets his match in Musetta, played by the gloriously funny and brilliant soprano Gabriela Reyes. Director Bacaling made some realism-based choices in allowing the character of Musetta to be very open about her life as a courtesan to wealthy and older men. Reyes gives off that mercurial heat to drive Marcello insane with jealousy, yet he can't stay away.
The tremendous talent in this production has appeared in other Lyric productions. The voice and physicality of bass Peixin Chen (Don Carlos) are imposing and magnetic. When he sells his coat to get Mimi medicine, it feels like a sacrifice from his soul to help his friend. There is none of the maudlin angst as in previous productions. Levi Hernandez does double duty as Benoit and Alcindoro. He is another comic performer who can do physical comedy and sing to the rafters.
Trayvon D. Walker (Blue, Fidelio) completes the group of dudes on the prowl and shares their good fortune and food. Walker is another tenor with subtlety and power in his voice. I see him becoming a part of the brilliant filament in Lyric's adventurous programming.
Gerald Howland's brilliant set design for the garret and the apartment are on point with the factory loft before the gentrification. The windows and cardboard keep the heat in. It is one of my favorite set designs, but it comes in a quantity. I did not particularly like the addition of the Uniting Voices Chicago (formerly the Children's Chorus). It was a bit too Disney for my taste.
La Boheme is the story of the have-nots and the halves. How far will they go from love or to set each other free? Where La Boheme looks at the role of women in the Belle Epoch, it also casts a sharp eye on how the world has always worked, no matter the era. This version doesn't look down on the women who make money how they can. In France, there was less of a moralistic superiority complex over sex.
La Boheme is one of the classics that will remain in the hearts of many. This version casts the eyes of a realist when it comes to women's choices in making a living. Many women got through life by becoming courtesans or prostitutes, hoping to snag a wealthy patron. This production is one of the finest I have seen. I highly recommend it, except for too much of the children's choir. It was cute, but that is not why I go to the opera. Make sure that you see one of the all-time classics from Puccini. Three Stars.
La Boheme plays through April 12 at the Lyric Opera, 20 N. Wacker Drive. Please visit www.lyric.org for show times and tickets.
For more information on this and other productions, see theatreinchicago.com.
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