Puccini pared down

Puccini is a full-blooded composer of unforgettable passions, big tunes and broken hearts. And even in a pared-down performance of just four singers and one piano, in a large and frankly pretty empty church, the story of the doomed love of Mimi and Rodolfo in La bohème came across powerfully. The cast only offered snapshots of the opera, but they strung the arias and extracts together in a way that captured the essence of the story. I wasn't won over by the voice of the soprano singing Mimi, Valentina Bor. For all her dynamic volume and musical understanding, her tone seemed somehow thin, at moments shrill. Angelo Fiore, singing the part of Rodolfo, however, had a gorgeous tenor voice so warm it could melt stone. Shame there weren't more people at S Stefano al Ponte that Sunday evening to hear him: his voice was one of those unexpected finds that makes it worth going to a concert you know nothing about in advance.