Fantastic staging and performances except for Mimi

Tremendous experience

Just returned from opening night, 11/23, would have 5 stars but for the lost of the dramatic effect of the death scene: Mimi suppose to drop the muff, a dramatic indication of her death . This Mimi never lost the muff.

I booked la boheme 3 months ago and was so looking forward to this bucket list performance having travelled from Ireland. I attended on 10th Nov however was unfortunately underwhelmed. Whilst I enjoyed the performance, the voices of the performers, in particular the lead male performer was lost in the vast arena. The first and final acts set felt too removed from the audience.The orchestra at times drowned out the individual performers. The set however was amazing.

Yesterday was my 64th birthday and the first time to the Met in 2 years...I was looking forward to this performance for months...my criticism is not about the performance...I am clearly not qualified to comment...it was the mechanics of the performance that was the problem...three intermissions...one short and two long for scene changes...these breaks seemed longer than the acts themselves..damaged the continuity of the story and any emotional connection that I might have had....perhaps the designers should have concentrated on the actual performance and not the pomp and circumstance...I can't believe that I am the only one thinking this...

My husband and I are Puccini fans and love La Boheme and have seen it four or five times. Our seats in the gand tier were great. We were looking forward to the Met performance. But it surprised us by being such a huge venue. This made Boheme, a compact Opera, rather lost and voices literally disappeared. Some of the sets were too complex and they took ages to change especially when the machinary broke down. The 'pub scene' with Musette as the star turn was so lavish as to be ridiculous. There was a huge chorus, (and I mean huge) a pony and trap, a horse and cart and a full marching band. I kid you not. That, and the very long scene changes were rather irritating and took away the atmosphere from what is essentially a small scale intimate opera. We have seen better with the Welsh National Opera and indeed a small opera in Paris. All in all it was a disappointing experience from a premier venue, and we were not as emotionally drained at the end as we usually are