Giacomo Puccini
La Bohème • Madama Butterfly • Tosca • Manon Lescaut
Giacomo Puccini • La Bohème • Glyndebourne Festival Opera • 2022
Death is not in Puccini’s cast list. But in Visser’s production, which plays on any number of film references from The Seventh Seal to Meet Joe Black, he is on stage so much that it’s almost a surprise that he doesn’t get the final curtain call. Can the others see him? Mimì can, once she accepts her illness; Rodolfo can’t, yet he glances over his shoulder as if he senses something is there. The opera becomes something other than – arguably more than – a story of youth and doomed love. And Visser’s gamble pays off: it is riveting. It helps that Christopher Lemmings is such a magnificently magnetic presence, silent except for when he assumes the brief role of Parpignol, the toy-seller whose half-dozen notes usually go almost unnoticed; here he is doling out red balloons that you suspect might have strings infused with cholera. Those balloons are a rare spot of colour against the black and grey of Jon Morrell’s costumes and Dieuweke Van Reij’s set, a blank-walled street stretching back into dark nothingness.
Erica Jeal/The Guardian 12th June 2022
It’s rare to encounter a staging that presents the world’s most popular opera in a radically different way… I was transfixed by Floris Visser’s production! And not just by the bold unifying idea of Mimì being silently stalked by the figure of Death from start to finish, but also by the superb stagecraft deployed to ensure that this sour-faced, overcoated figure (superbly mimed by Christopher Lemmings) was subtly sinister rather than a naff, horror-film ghoul.
Richard Morrison/The Times 13th June 2022
Visser has added a character into the mix, the black-clad Death, visible only to Mimi, who silently stalks her throughout the piece. Played by tenor Christopher Lemmings, the role of the toy seller Parpignol is incorporated into his character, and the red balloons he hands out to the members of the children’s chorus are a stark contrast to the mostly monochrome design, and a haunting reminder that death will, eventually, come to us all. Another clever use of colour, and a particularly macabre moment, comes in the final bars of Act 2. Rodolfo and Mimi have pledged to stay together throughout the winter and part in spring, when the flowers return. As death retreats over the cobbles, Lemmings slowly pulls a dust sheet off the stacks of chairs, revealing them to be adorned with beautiful bright pink flowers. What should be a symbol of life and rebirth is eerily transformed into a haunting omen of the opera’s ensuing tragedy.
Miranda Heggie/The Arts Desk 13th June 2022
The stalking figure is played by Christopher Lemmings, who also takes the small role of Parpignol, the toyseller at the Café Momus. That’s no coincidence: one of the most moving moments is when Mimì looks longingly at Parpignol handing out toys to the children, as if to plead for the gift of life.
Barry Millington/Evening Standard 13th June 2022
It’s a monochrome world disrupted only by Mimi’s pink beret. the red balloons of the toy seller Parpignol, sung with a virtuosic intensity by lyric tenor by Christopher Lemmings, and the pink flowers that presage Mimi’s inevitable fate. Death is also played by the emistable Christopher Lemmings, this time in a non-singing role seemingly channelling horror maestro Peter Cushing, Mimi is stalked by this sombre figure throughout the whole piece, eventually walking off with him to the back of the stage as she dies unnoticed whilst her friends manage their grief.
Adrian York/London Unattached 12th June 2022
Giacomo Puccini • Madama Butterfly • Bergen National Opera
The Most striking aspect of this Madama Butterfly at Bergen National Opera was the spot-on vocal casting…Christopher Lemmings made a silver-tongued Goro
Opera Magazine
Giacomo Puccini • Tosca • Vlaamse Opera
Andrew Greenan, Christopher Lemmings et Matteo Peirone apportent quant à eux un soin particulier à leur personnage, respectivement Angelotti, Spoletta et Sacristain.
Giacomo Puccini • Manon Lescaut • Glyndebourne Festival Opera
Christopher Lemmings’ sinuous Dancing Master swoops like an elegant swallow