Another Saturday arrives and another show to see tonight, it’s the 4th of February 2017, and I’m back at the Millenium Centre in Cardiff Bay for my 2nd performance of the brilliant La Boheme, from the Welsh National Opera. A fabulous opera from Puccini, so beautifully undertaken by this wonderful company. Having seen this last weekend I’m so looking forward to watching it unfold all over again.

And so to tonight’s performance, with the cast remaining as last week. I’d like to talk about some of the things I never got around to, last time out. As usual the WNO have produced an excellent show. The set is well thought out, with an exquisite front curtain, opening up for the main scenes. A versatile set which changes, with ease as the opera rolls along. The snowy scenes of act two look very realistic, and make you feel cold for a split second, before the fabulous voices on show, quickly warm you back up to normal temperature. Along with the set goes the lighting designs, which add a great deal to the feel of the opera, enhancing the stage presence of each character, with its surroundings. The costumes have a really simple design theme to them, although work extremely well with the plot of this opera, with many of its characters struggling to make ends meet. Another aspect of this production is the use of the children in some of the scenes, with a few sung lines dotted around these particular stages of the opera. Even though they don’t sing an awful lot, they still sound good, as their combined voices resonate around the auditorium. 

Again, during most of this wonderful opera I had a tear in my eye, mainly due to the Superb vocal talent on show here tonight. Another fabulous performance from all on show. So impressed I just wanted to listen to this all night. Still, on the plus side I will hopefully get to see it again before it begins its tour later in the month.

As I said last week, the standard of the voices on show is just magnificent, (which always seems to be the case with the WNO), they never fail to deliver exactly what they set out to achieve. Which is one of the reasons I keep coming back for more every season.