Touring opera and ballet companies face many challenges, logistical and musical, with staging being adapted to a range of venues. The results can therefore often be patchy to say the least. In the case of this production it was a little disconcerting to hear sounds that suggested that the set was still being built coming from behind closed curtains between acts.

Once such imperfections were forgotten there was a tremendous amount to enjoy in this production of Puccini's opera.

Few operas have so slight a storyline as does this. It is maybe surprising then that this has remained one of the most popular of all operas. This is surely accounted for by the lengthy stretches of sublime music for the stage, vocal and instrumental,put together by a master operatic practitioner.

The score was well realised by an excellent orchestra, conducted by Nicolae Dohotaru, who showed great attention to detail, always accompanying sympathetically .The wonderful musical depiction of the chill Parisian streets as the snow fell in act three was particularly memorable.

The singing was uniformy good with Ruslan Zinevych (Rodolfo) and Elena Dee(Mimi) convincing as they delivered some of the best known sequences of lovesong in music even if there were occasional issues of audability. Petru Racovita was a vocally superb Marcello and Olga Perrier dominated the stage in act 2 as the seductive Musetta. Also noticeable was the characterisation of each part with convincing depictions across the board.