Luhrmann's La Boheme a success

Australian film director Baz Luhrmann's live production of Puccini's La Boheme in San Francisco has been judged a great success by critics and audience alike. The opening night of the opera, at the 1600-seat Curran Theatre until November 10 before moving to the Broadway Theatre in New York in December, was attended by the likes of Nicole Kidman, who starred in Luhrmann's movie Moulin Rouge, Kevin Spacey ("the kids are gonna dig it"), Andy Garcia and, more importantly, true opera lovers, who may have had doubts because of Luhrmann's OTT style.

But no. This version, set in 1950s Paris, "is a sensation mainly for not being sensational", writes Steve Winn of the San Francisco Chronicle. "[It] is an intimately scaled, emotionally attentive, visually choice and musically lucid staging of a great opera about riotous love and bohemian bonhomie."

Sure, there are some Baz-stunts, abetted by Luhrmann's wife and creative partner, Catherine Martin. The cast (three revolving teams of performers) wear T-shirts and leather jackets, the set is cranked into place on stage by singers and stagehands, and Cafe Momus is set alight. Prostitutes, cross-dressers, and children on scooters liven up act two. The English surtitles include words like "thwack!", "kapow!" and "@!&%". But Maggie Shiels of BBC News Online concurs with Winn and other critics, saying Luhrmann's interpretation "is a triumph for opera and for the man himself".