“La Boheme”

Above: Act I of Puccini’s “La Boheme” in the 2006 Hamburg Staatsoper production.

Below: Act II of Puccini’s “La Boheme” in the 1996 San Francisco Opera production, presented this season at Lyric Opera Of Chicago.

Portions of the Hamburg production were unintentionally hilarious, at least to Americans. I do not believe the director of the Hamburg production, Guy Joosten, had affection or respect for the work.

The San Francisco production was simply low-budget and lame.