<<  -- 6 --  Roderic Dunnett    UNUSUAL CHEMISTRY

Act III maintained the excellence. The opening vignettes (the chirruping clutch of milkmaids, Vasile Coseli's Sergeant vignette, and the opening flute and harp, plus pizzicato strings) were all first rate. Natalia Yutesh's Mimi, although lovely, still tended to hit the note perfectly and then vibrato uncertainly off it, thus destroying the effect, but her involving stage presence already anticipated the particularly strong final dénouement in store. Racovita's slightly acidic tone tended to balance and offset Zinovych's overegging : the trio (with woodwind as superb as the flute and clarinet that preceded Mimi's Act I entry); Mimi's 'addio, senza rancor' and the subsequent parting, with fine hymnic strings and flickering flutes, then clarinet and cello folded in near the close, was fabulous, not least because the orchestra caught the electric atmosphere onstage and reflected it.

The Marcello-Rodolfo exchanges, the act four quartet, some fine orchestral playing for Mimi's 'I pretended to be asleep' (the surtitles served an excellent purpose throughout), all paved the way for the Yutesh-Zinovych final parting. Here Zinovych (like Yutesh, Odessa trained; and it has to be said that he was a clear hit with the audience) controlled his almost pathological urge to belt, and the 'youth' element (something Oxana Cobzeva, one of Chisinau's most seasoned Mimis and Traviatas, can't quite still manage) again paid dividends. Rodolfo's agony was as tear-jerking as any I've seen : the bark had become a yelp, the boyish protege (initially one felt he needed Mimi to chaperone him) the lost lover.With their final exchange front of curtain, the prospect of his own loneliness loomed terrifying. A ravishing end.

The Chisinau National Opera productions of Cav and Pag and La Bohème are at Bristol until Saturday, then touring to Basingstoke (l8 February 2001), Cork and Limerick (27-31 March), Belfast and Dublin (1-4 April), Tunbridge Wells (6-7 April), Ipswich (9-10 April) and Canterbury (11-12 April). (La Bohème only at Coventry, 22 March). Details +44 (0)1634 819141.