Janos wrote:

>An amazing difference of opinions the same day about
>Luhrmann's "Really Big Show Boheme" - Brantley in the NYTimes
>(http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/09/arts/theater/09BOHE.html)  and
>Bernheimer in the Financial Times (http://tinyurl.com/3du3).

I don't think it is available on-line for non-subscribers, but the
review by Heidi Waleson in the Dec. 10 Wall Street Journal was
less-than-enthusiastic.  Excerpts:

    ...the (conventional) opera house still puts music first. By
    failing to do that, Mr. Luhrmann has created a pale facismile of
    what the best American opera houses can offer.....Shifting Act
    III...from the gates of Paris to the distant French-Belgian border
    was a miscalculation, however, and the barbed wire and the customs
    officers' grey huts look too Eastern Europe...  The Cafe Momus
    scene...offers a wide range for fantasy, like the whore in underwear
    and white fur and the Simone de Beauvoir wannabe in tight black
    trousers.......Puccini's music carries the true emotional story
    of "La Boheme." and despite its nominal adherence to the opera's
    form, this production has put the music squarely in last place.

GeneH