Who? Reyna Harilela, Andrew Yuen, Paul and Leta Lau, Jeannie Cho Lee
Where and When? December 4 at Deng G. Sichuan and K11 Art House
Here’s what you missed: A total of 85 guests and supporters of More Than Musical attended a lunchtime film screening of Giacomo Puccini’s La Bohème on December 4. Founded in 2016, the Hong Kong-based non-profit company makes the opera more accessible and relevant in order to appeal to a broader and more diverse audience.
More Than Musical also invite 145 students from local schools for an afternoon of fun, sponsored by the Equal Opportunities Foundation.
The story of La Bohème follows a poet, a painter, a musician and a philosopher (the bohemians) living together in Paris. Their lives are changed on one freezing Christmas Eve when a seamstress named Mimi knocks on their door looking for a candle light, and she and Rodolfo, the poet, fall in love. However, their rush of love at first sight soon gives way to something much darker: Mimi becomes desperately ill, and Rodolfo cannot provide for her. As a result, the bohemians awaken to the harsh realities of life.
In More Than Musical’s reimagined film version of the staged opera, the setting is updated to 2020 New York—the bohemians go to Manhattan’s Chinatown at Chinese New Year—and Mimi’s terrible coughing strongly suggests that she is suffering from Covid-19. Created by filmmaker Laine Rettmer, the film focuses specifically on the personal and artistic struggles of young Asians and Asian Americans and other young people of colour in the city.