(Above: Anna Netrebko as Mimì and Piotr Beczala as Rodolfo)
Attention Mall Shoppers: Thirty-seven year old Venezian opera director Damiano Michieletto's idea for La Bohème -- opening tomorrow night at the Salzburg Festival with Beczala as Rodolfo, Trebs as Mimì and Machaidze as Musetta -- is Paris as a cross-section framed within Google Maps and dropped into a mall. The young bohemians are mallrats who live in "a glorious age of illusion and utopias, like children, irresponsible. Rodolfo is snappy and irritable and Mimi is fragile." Judging by costumes, it's set in the ~other~ mall where kids clocked each other with masterlocks and stole from Hot Topic, Spenser's and Chess King.
Tomorrow night's la prima will start at 7:00pm on Radio3, streaming live from the Grosses Festspielhaus, featuring interviews with Michieletto and Gatti on the podium with the Wiener Philharmoniker. All photos Silvia Lelli.
(Nino Machaudze as Musetta)
(Anna Netrebko as Mimì)