<<  -- 5 --  Roderic Dunnett    UNUSUAL CHEMISTRY

It was there that the evening's revelation appeared : heralded by Ion Stanca's trio of real-life clowns, Elena Gherman's Musetta descended, clad in expensive dress and pink Parisian echarpe, like a vision from a Jacobean Masque. If stalwarts like Materinco's Schaunard and Petru Racovita's Marcello can dominate a stage with nonchalant ease, Gherman can tweak an audience with her little finger. When she drops her voice, as she so skilfully does, it can be electrifying. Musical detail kept emerging that many other stagings so often tend to cloud. Much Act II dramatic detail was well observed, the focus on Marcello ('My youth, you are not yet dead') was particularly effective, the moment when conductor Nicolae Dohotaru's flutes and piccolos begin, almost inaudibly, to fold in Puccini's military band march subliminally beneath the singers was tingling. And the climax was terrific.

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