RED CURTAIN COMING DOWN:

Baz's Broadway opera: Luhrmann and Miller chose a monochrome theme (Maggie Shiels, 7 October, 2002, BBC)

The Australian director of movie hit Moulin Rouge, Baz Luhrmann, has never been afraid to tinker with the arts world's sacred cows.

He did it most successfully with Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet where he opened the bard's work up to a more diverse crowd than schools ever could.

Now he is at it again, with the 40-year-old preparing to stage classic opera - Giacomo Puccini's La Boheme - on Broadway where he feels it will reach its "true audience".

By that he means supplanting the so called "opera buffs" who have turned the medium into an elitist art form for an "exclusive club".

"Puccini made this work that it could be played for all kinds of people from all kinds of backgrounds - that's everyone from the street sweeper to the King of Naples. That was our mission," he explains in San Francisco, where the opera will run first.

We're big Baz Luhrmann fans here. This review explains why. Posted by Orrin Judd at October 7, 2002 8:21 PM