Opera Scotland

Bohème 2024Dnipro Opera (Ukrainian National Opera)

Read more about the opera Bohème

The Dnipro region is one of the areas most affected by recent events in war-torn Ukraine, but is still home to an excellent division of the Ukrainian National Opera.  This was their second, very welcome, visit to the UK.  Scotland saw two of the three productions being toured - Butterly came here last year, and only had a handful of performances down south. Bohème could be seen in Ayr and Perth, with Carmen going to Ayr, Dunfermline and Dundee.

The Puccini, as seen in Perth, was highly enjoyable, despite the fairly basic nature of the staging.  The first and last acts, set in the garret, had no set as such, merely black drapes, with a scattering of appropriate furniture.  The café and street acts boasted an attractive backdrop of a convincingly appropriate Parisian street-scene.  There was little attempt to create atmosphere by means of lighting.

Central to the performance was the excellent Ukrainian orchestra under Ihor Puchkov.  Around thirty strong, they played with great sensitivity, especially after the interval.

The cast was led by two excellent sopranos, with highly contrasted voices.  Olena Dolhina had a attractively warm tone and sang with great refinement.  Sofiia Soroka had a brighter tone and despatched her waltz song with aplomb.

Og the men, the Colline, Maxym Ivashchuk, sang his farewell to his coat beautifully, while Volodymyr Hudz made a sympathetic Schaunard, clearly very fond of Rodolfo's girl.  Andriy Lomakovych, as Marcello was also consistently good.  Only the Rodolfo, Teimuraz Parulava, sounded a bit dry of voice, thouh he sang accuratley and made a sympathetic character.

As with all these Ukrainian performances, the final highlight was the singing after the curtain calls of their national anthem, greeted with huge enthusiasm by the audience.

It is a pity that the Amande Concert Agency still don't provide a cast list with the programme - some of the leading performers can be identified from photographs in the programme, but not all.