Not too long ago, there was another opportunity to watch the art form which is about as popular these days as bending over and coughing for polite airport staff who detected something vibrating in your baggage – Opera.

Now of course, the last (and first) time I had ventured out on a grey dark evening in London town to the location where various people would be on stage, it was to watch the soul selling wonder that is Faust. It was something which did do wonders to change your mind about the whole thing, though perhaps not enough to be performing it in the street for pennies. I think even the Big Issue sellers at that point would think I’ve lost it.

It’s still not everyone’s cup of tea, after having no idea what was going on half the time is annoying if life, let alone in a production you’re seeing, getting whiplash from the rapid arching up and down at the people on stage and the subtitles to hear what they are saying all the while wondering whether or not people had attention deficit disorder given that they repeated most of their lines twice, it was understandable why it doesn’t have mainstream appeal.

But given the fact that Faust actually surprised in terms of how well it was put together, the story and the nice fact for us simpletons that it was all in English, why not venture again to see if there is some consistency to it all?

So with that in mind, for the purpose of review….well for the purpose of taking the p*ss out of it under the pretence of a review, let’s have a butchers at the recent performance of La Boheme by that bloke who did some other things too, Puccini, and this is the picture that accompanies the advertising;

My, doesn’t that fill you with the joy of the season? The trouble is that Opera normally involves men and women falling in love, sh*t happening and then they all die, all while being judged for being unholy in the eyes of the lord and therefore the lesson being don’t stray from God or you’ll get f**ked over. So seeing the above image didn’t do much to change my mind from that overall theme.

But once you sit down and witness what goes on, you’d once again be surprised. Actually before the performance began there was another surprise.

The music director for the London Collision came out before the beginning of the play, asking for donations after it turns out the pirates of the coalition had slashed the subsidy to the arts. Nice to see that even in a venue for providing escapism, that you cannot escape the devils of reality. It does raise the question about whether or not the art form of Opera would indeed continue as it was in this country, or in fact would die out, only to be seen on Sky Arts HD 50 years from now.

But just like the whole debate about the cuts and the “Big Society” coming from the government and picking your arse cleaned with cooking tongs, all that will have to wait for another time.

The condensed story for La broho for those not in the know (like myself) goes a little something like this;

During Christmas, some people are busy painting and writing while being poor and then after being tired of being cold, decide to burn their work before two other guys show up and have a laugh. Oh dear, the landlord then comes round wanting rent, and after talking about him being a dirty bastard with the ladies, send him merrily on his way while they all go to the cafe to celebrate things.

All except Mr. Writer, who is named Rodolfo, who stays to finish some article. Along comes a woman called Mimi who is a bit knackered and lost her key to her house. Love sparks in about 3 seconds, and then off to the cafe, at which various things happen with people running around and singing.

Mimi later turns out to be ill, Rodolfo basically has been acting like a prat as he thinks she will be get better not being with him and his poor poorness. They split up, and then along comes Spring with the likely lads we know and love at it again, painting, writing and running around, only this time Mimi turns back up and decides bugger it, I love Rod more than the rich gimp I ended up with, but she’s dying. Everyone rushes out to get stuff to help, but she dies. The End.

Now despite the story sounding it wasn’t on the back of a beer mat, rest assured it couldn’t be further from the truth. For once, there was true comedy moments during the opera particularly with the likely lads larking about and the arguing that went on between one of the likely lads and a woman who used men as she saw fit (oops, missed that from the story) and it was a refeshing change from what Faust brought to the table.

There was also very little of the way of repetition so clearly we were all paying attention this time, and in some respects it was slightly easier to follow what was going on this time. There was also far far less of the god bothering theme in this production than there was before, though one thing which still runs through my mind is how do they fall in love so fast in these things? Do the men just get drunk back stage and then go “I’ll have that” when their female co-stars appear?

The production values were very high in La bovril, with the sets very well made and detailed and the transitions between scenes made effortless, a true testament to those to have to put the whole thing together with bits of MDF and plastic from B&Q. However from where we were in the “lower class” section, the warballing was overpowered by the music at times, so having the subtitles was a blessing while observing the fun.

All in all, this was in fact better than Faust in may respects and in fact could be one of the examples where people could be convinced that Opera is not just a load of b*llocks like it used to be. Or really what will happen, it will get ignored and we’ll sweep it back under the rug and pretend it’s not there.