by Daniel Hathaway
Puccini’s La Bohème was produced 598 times worldwide during the 2017-2018 season, making it the fourth most-performed title in the repertoire (trailing La traviata, Carmen, and The Magic Flute). It’s also the show that Cleveland Opera Theater chose for its move from venues like the Masonic Auditorium and the Maltz Performing Arts Center to the Ohio Theater, a more traditionally-outfitted house. On Friday, September 13, Scott Skiba’s clever production surrounded a fine cast with memorable scenic design by Matthew D. McCarren and projections by Brittany Merenda that brought a Parisian garret, the Café Momus, and a toll gate outside the city vividly to life in Playhouse Square.
Enjoying the natural beauty of Lake Erie has always been part of composer Margaret Brouwer’s life — she grew up spending summers at her family’s lake cottage in Huron. But when dangerous levels of algae blooms in the Lake’s western basin caused a water crisis in Toledo in 2014, the ensuing national conversation about environmental pollution and the state of the country’s drinking water became the source of inspiration for Brouwer’s latest composition,