Performer: Natascha Metherell

Natascha Metherell relocates the action to an Italian film studio of the 1950s, which looks great but brings problems. 

Jonathan Miller's production of La bohème is revived by ENO and features an important house debut. 

ENO's revival of Jonathan Miller's 2009 production is musically solid, but falls short of the dramatic intensity achieved in previous years.

What to do with a “classic revival” that has, in the main, met the critics’ eye of approval? That was the question facing Natascha Metherell, the revival director of ENO’s production of La bohème, which opened this week at the Coliseum. The revival was in fact deftly handled: a production which remained faithful to Miller’s original vision, with honest, rather than over-egged, sentimentality.