THE CHARM OF LA BOHEME
| (Inter-Gloria Film, Vienna)
HIS Austrian film, produced just before the war and now given a local clearance, comes as close to presenting grand opera on the
screen as any film I can remember. It doesn’t go quite the whole distance, for it will be noted that the story is a variation on, or rather a parallel of, the Puccini plot, and not the opera-plot itself. This parallelism is ingeniously enough contrived, though you will probably be conscious some of the time that it js contrived. The hero is a Parisian operatic student with ambition, and the heroine is a talented young singer with consumption. They meet in a Bohemian atmosphere, fall in love, have minor disagreements, but on the whole are idyllically happy-or would be if only he could get his big-chance in opera. So the ueroine, who has a rich admirer without honourable intentions but plenty of influence, makes the necessary sacrifice of her scruples (though not, at this time, of anything else), and an audition is arranged, But now it is time for the tragic atmosphere to deepen. On the very night that the hero has a succés fou in the role of Rudolpho in La Bohéme, the heroine is stricken low with her disease. Rather than prejudice her lover's chances at the beginning of his career, she’ makes the customary melodramatic pretence that sh® was never in earnest about marriage: he goes off in one directen on the usual triumphant tour of world capitals; she goes off in another with her rich admirer. Months later they meet again, still full of misunderstanding and injured pride. The hero is due to sing Rudolpho in a Parisian presentation of La Bohéme; the heroine, Stage-managing the situation desperately, arranges to sing Mimi. So the pair are finally reunited and reconciled in a literal representation of the opera’s tragic last scene, the heroine coughing out her life on the stage in the arms of her lover, bg ba % T has often occurred to me to wonder whether the role of Mimi is physically possible: that is to say, whether a woman in the last extremity of phthisis pulmonum could produce the musical sounds demanded by Puccini’s score. I doubt very ‘much if it is possible; and certainly there can be few operatic sights more ludicrous than that of a hale and hearty 16-stone prima‘ donna expiring Puccinically. Yet Martha Eggerth, who plays Mimi in this film, comes as near as anybody could, I am sure,-to making the situation both convincing and moving: she has a clear and charming voice, as well as the type of beauty which the role demands but does not always get in opera. About Jan Kiepura, who plays the hero, I cannot be so enthusiastic. He
belongs to the school of operatic acting which relies principally on a generous display of dentures, tonsils, and the whites of the eyes, and on plenty of semaphoring with the arms, while the artist remains emotionally as wooden as a totem-pole. "You should thank God that He has given you such a marvellous voice," says somebody to Mr, Kiepura in the, course of the film. This strikes me as very sound advice, since he hasn’t much else to be thankful for, However, I do willingly concede. that Mr, _ Kiepura is no mean voice-preducer, any} his popularity as a singer will probabl; in the opinion of most people, outweig his obvious shortcomings as an actor. The dialogue is in German, the subtitles (adequate) are in English; there are some satisfactory comic interludes; and in the course of the story you do manage to get a pretty big slice of the La Bohéme score, either sung by the stars and chorus, or played by the Vienna State Philharmonic Orchestra, So far as music goes, at least, I think you have something here.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 432, 3 October 1947, Page 24
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644THE CHARM OF LA BOHEME New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 432, 3 October 1947, Page 24
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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