Milwaukee Ballet presents a moving ‘La Bohème’

One of opera’s great love stories returns to the stage to be retold through the medium of dance.

Milwaukee Ballet is reprising its performance of La Bohème, based on Giacomo Puccini’s famous opera about the lives and loves of impoverished young artists living in the Latin Quarter of Paris.

Puccini’s story of the poet Rodolfo and the seamstress Mimi, initially adapted by ballet artistic director Michael Pink in 2012, also provided source material for the musical Rent, a traveling production of which just completed its Milwaukee run.

Pink finds the timing of the production fortuitous.

“It just feels right that artists take these great stories and reimagine them,” he says. “The story is unbelievably emotional and the score incredibly tuneful, which allowed us to translate it into dance in a very effective way.”

The production runs Nov. 2–5 at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts in Milwaukee.

Pink and Milwaukee Ballet music director Andrews Sill worked with the opera’s original score and libretto to create the ballet.

The narrative has been condensed and gone are some recitatives. In their place, Sill has substituted some other short pieces of music by Puccini that the creative pair felt helped better tell the story.

“We decided to stay with the libretto and create in nonverbal theater the dialogue that was happening onstage,” Pink says. “Those familiar with the opera can feel confident that it’s all there.”

The same company members who performed them in 2012 are reprising the principal roles, Pink says.

Davit Hovhannisyan and Patrick Howell share the role of Rodolfo over the four performances, and the role of Mimi is shared by Luz San Miguel and Nicole Teague-Howell. Timothy O’Donnell and Isaac Sharratt share the role of Marcello, Rodolfo’s friend, and Annia Hidalgo and Marize Fumero dance Musetta, Marcello’s girlfriend.

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As in 2012, the narrative has been reset from the 1890s to the 1950s, which allows the dancers to avoid the somewhat cumbersome clothes of the earlier era. It also strips the production back to a leaner design and a “shoestring budget,” which Pink feels is more evocative of the poverty in which the characters live.

As for the dance, Pink says it’s steeped in classical ballet, but with the occasional contemporary touch.

“What I think I do best of all is choreographing the quiet, still moments between the action,” the artistic director explains. “This production has so many moments of unbelievable power, and the danger of ballet is that you tend to want to put too much into it.”

‘The dancers are the music’

Pink notes a distinct difference in the way dancers occupy their roles compared to how operatic singers portray them.

“The dancers are the music, and that’s the difference between the ballet and the opera,” Pink says. “In opera, the singers control the shape of the music, but in ballet the music leads the dancers through the emotion of the piece.

“I find it hard to get through a day’s rehearsal without shedding a tear,” he adds.

Pink’s inaugural adaptation of La Bohème allowed him to craft and shape the original work.

Now that basics are in place, this year’s production has given him the opportunity to further refine the production to give it a sharper edge when needed, and better bring out the emotion where it’s warranted.

“At the ballet you arrive at the emotions so much sooner than you do at the opera,” Pink explains. “The physicality amplifies the emotional condition, and the little moments in between allow Mimi to do things critical to the emotional nature of the story.

“Mimi’s dying, and yet she’s so much stronger and supportive to the man who loves her because he just can’t cope,” Pink adds. “People came up to me after the previous production so emotional that they just couldn’t speak.”

In the end, La Bohème is a story of the struggle in human relations, the artistic director says.

Even those unfamiliar with the work should have no trouble understanding the characters’ motivations and following their actions in what may be one of the most emotionally compelling of all love stories.

“I just hope people come and see and experience it for themselves,” Pink says.

On stage

Milwaukee Ballet’s production of La Bohème runs Nov. 2–5 at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts, 929 N. Water St., Milwaukee. Tickets are $40–$115 and may be purchased at the box office or by dialing 414-273-7206. For more, go online to milwaukeeballet.org.