Opera for the common man: "La Boheme" in a pub

LONDON, Dec 23 - (Reuters) - It takes guts to stage an opera in a working man''s pub in an Irish part of London, but the Cock Tavern Theater Company''s production of Puccini''s "La Boheme," in English and updated for modern audiences, has audiences mesmerized.

That perhaps un-Pucciniesque touch, performed by the tease Musetta, comes in Act Two when the entire company of mostly young singers, getting a big break to tackle such challenging roles early in their careers, troops downstairs from the tiny theater above the pub, where most of the opera is staged, to do the famous Cafe Momus scene right there -- in the pub.

"They love it," Michael Darby, 62, a native of County Westmeath in Ireland, said of the reaction of the Cock Tavern''s regulars.

That includes himself -- and after they got used to the nightly spectacle of an act of late 19th-century Italian opera, set in a French cafe, performed for the paying audience -- the other regulars and even the pool players in the back, if they ever care to look up from the table.

If they don''t, they miss one of the most ingenious stagings of this scene ever devised.

The singers and pub patrons almost blend into one, the tavern noise adds the overtones that playing the score on an upright piano can''t furnish, and the chorus dotted around the room does a bit of heckling which encourages pub patrons to join in, making it rowdy, boisterous and a huge artistic success.

Following rave reviews for the December opening, the 40-seat theater has often sold out and the run has been extended into February for a production which blows the cobwebs off Puccini''s three-hanky melodrama and sets a new standard for bringing opera to the masses.

"I trained as an opera singer in Australia before I became an opera director, and it was always annoying to me how many barriers there are for people like the people who you see here," said Adam Spreadbury-Maher, 28, the theatre''s artistic director.

"So I figured when I finally get my own theater, which happened 10 months ago, right, we need to put some opera on but do it in a way so people can actually sit down, enjoy it, have a pint and actually understand what''s being said -- no surtitles -- and I hope that''s what we''ve done here tonight."

"Mission accomplished" is the verdict from the audience, the regulars and possibly those pool players, if they ever do look.

That is in no small part due to the brisk, clever staging and a fresh, breezy translation and updating of the libretto by Robin Norton-Hale, the director for this production.