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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 15, 2000)
decanta 15.2000 • J m C m * | 45 11 « j r ou’ve got to see I f Rent." T h a t’s what ' my friends from New York all told me. “Rent ?” 1 sneered. "Isn’t that some kind o f rock musical, a rip-off on La Bohèm e ?” (O K , 1 admit it. I’m an opera snob. I’m a gay man. It’s an obligation.) “Just go," they said. So when the national tour of Rent first came to Portland, I bought the cheap est seat possible, prepared to leave after the first act. Long story short: My friends were right. I was completely unprepared for the depth o f this show (Hello? It won a Pulitzer) and for the emo tional punch it packs. First off, there’s the audi ence. I haven’t heard shout ing like this in a theater since my high school musical days. Because o f the subject matter— starving artists— the producers o f Rent always make sure $ 2 0 tickets for Scenes from R ent the first two rows are avail able the day o f the show for those willing to > line up for them. T h is, com bined with a huge teen following (I ask you, what Broadway musi cal has that.7), makes for a far livelier audience than the usual W est Hills crowd. T hen there’s the show itself. Fresh, original, quirky and very, very gay, Rent indeed is based on G iacom o Puccini’s L a Bohèm e, which in turn was based on Henry Murger’s 19th century novel about starving artists in the Montmartre section o f Paris, Scènes de la Vie de Bohèm e. Composer Jonath an Larson skillfully updates the source material by setting it in New York’s East Village and by substituting HIV for tuberculosis. In one particularly ch ill ing moment, a love duet is brought to an abrupt halt when the lovers’ beepers go off, reminding them to take their meds. But for me the most moving sequence comes in the second act when three sets of lovers— one straight, one gay, one lesbian— lie on beds and sing o f their devotion to one another. T h e thought o f teen-age Rent fans accepting this triptych o f lovers as normal does my heart good. Indeed, the most popular char acter is a drag queen, Angel, who also proves to be the em otional cen ter o f the show. Starting next month, Portlanders will have the rare opportunity to enjoy Rent and La Bohème practically back to back. Rent plays Jan. 2 to 7 at Keller Auditorium, and Portland Opera produces La Bohème Feb. 10 to 17. La Bohème is such an audience favorite it’s easy to forget how daring it was in its time, so seeing Rent should allow audi- ences to view this classic through new eyes. Through the years the opera has become stime kind o f Hallmark card with quaint tableaus of young lovers on a snowy Parisian night. Although the classic love story proves irresistible, La Bohème is really a coming-of-age story. Puccini identified with the characters, hav ing lived la vie bohème himself as a student in Milan, playing the piano loudly so his landlord wouldn’t hear his room mate, Pietro Mascagni (who went on to write the opera Cavalleria Rusticana), cooking. To get a taste of the power of La Bohème, be sure to rent Moonstruck before you go. This 1987 Oscar winner is a text book example of the right way to use opera in a movie. Typically, filmmakers get opera all wrong, like the choosing of “O Mio Babbino Caro” for the passionate love scenes in A Room with a View, when in reality the aria is about a young girl serenading her father. Moon struck not only pays attention to the words— Rodolfo’s aria “Che Gelida Manina” (“Your Tiny Hand Is Frozen”) begins the moment Cher and Nicolas Cage join hands on a cold, snowy street— but the spirit o f la vie bohème is put best by the Cage character: “Love don’t make things nice, it ruins every thing, it breaks your heart, it makes things a mess. W ere not here to make things perfect. Snowflakes are perfect. T he stars are perfect. Not us. We are here to min ourselves and break our hearts and love the wrong people and die!” W hen seeing La Bohème, listen closely to the simple aria in the final act when Colline, the philosophy student, bids farewell to his beloved coat before selling it to buy medicine for the dying Mimi. That melody returns as the final music in the opera; by placing it there, Puccini shows us how recognizing our mortality makes us love all the more. Completely by coincidence, Rent opened on the 100th anniversary o f the La Bohème premiere, but Larson did not live to see its suc cess, having died o f an aneurysm the night of the final dress rehearsal. He might be gone, but the spirit o f la vie bohème lives on. Viva la vie bohème ! jn M arc A cito was in all o f his high school musicals, so he knows what he's talking about. M ^ n T a l £ \V l JJ a V l T l I i N çô T o T a l £ A bolit C o ME. 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