MOVIE REVIEW : Puccini’s--and Comencini’s--Bittersweet ‘Boheme’

Last year, Franco Zeffirelli’s “Otello.” Now, Luigi Comencini’s “La Boheme.” The two, thank goodness, have little in common.

Zeffirelli thought nothing of second-guessing Verdi, mutilating an operatic masterpiece in the name of cinematic art. Comencini has the good sense to trust Puccini.

Trust, in this case, should not imply slavish devotion. Comencini’s sensitive little film, which opens Friday at the Westside Pavilion, does take a few narrative liberties.

The action is pushed forward, gently, from 1830 to 1910. It does no harm.

Some muted dramatic innovations are permitted. Mimi overhears the bohemians’ horseplay and exit before she plots her own entrance. She also plants her “lost” key at Rodolfo’s feet.

Musetta acquires a wealthy suitor, suavely delineated by Massimo Girotti. Silently, if intrusively, he stalks much of Act III.

The cameras follow the protagonists as they are allowed to move, logically, from room to room and from interior to exterior. The music is occasionally--and discreetly--embellished with the whistle of wind on the Latin Quarter rooftops.

This is hardly the stuff of revolution. Comencini respects his source too much to permit gimmickry. He contents himself with illuminating detail.

The translation from opera house to movie house does pose some obvious problems, and the director does not attempt to solve them all. The characters on the screen open their mouths wide and pretend to sing, even though the score has been prerecorded. The milieu remains realistic, even though the emotive scale is stylized.

It doesn’t take long to get used to the contradiction. Disbelief is willingly suspended.

Essentially, this is a thoughtful representation of a lofty sentimental indulgence. Comencini goes about this challenge with surprising modesty. He has described his task simply: “dressing up a pre-established sound track with pictures.”

The sound track in this case is a splendid facsimile of Puccini’s verismo potboiler. It is conducted with equal brio and delicacy by James Conlon.

The pictures sometimes suggest in-jokes. A solitary beggar strolls by to fiddle the postlude to “Ah, Mimi, tu piu non torni.” The band at the Cafe Momus literally accompanies Musetta’s Waltz.

At the end of the love duet, we suddenly see Mimi through Rodolfo’s eyes; she is framed by glitzy carnival lights. Marcello may curse his paintbrush at the beginning of Act III, but we see the erstwhile Cubist reduced here to sketching kitsch madonnas in chalk on the sidewalk.

It can be argued that such inspirations detract more than they add. Fortunately, Comencini resolutely keeps his eyes, and ours, in the right place at every crucial juncture.

The right place, much of the time, is the expressive face of Barbara Hendricks, who plays Mimi. No simpering soubrette, she makes the heroine warmhearted, resolute, mildly aggressive, all the more vulnerable for her generosity of spirit.

Her sweet, bell-like tones might prove inadequate for the strenuous cantilena in a big opera house. She sings with uncommon sweep, purity and pathos, however, for the microphones.

Her Rodolfo turns out to be less effective for several reasons. His singing is tender, poetic, ardent. His acting is earnest and stilted.

The dichotomy is easy to explain. Jose Carreras completed the recording in July, 1987, shortly before he was stricken with leukemia. At short notice, he was replaced in front of the cameras by Luca Canonici, a baby-faced Tuscan tenor on the brink of his own career.

Angela Maria Blasi, formerly of Los Angeles, introduces an earthy Musetta who gratefully and gracefully evades the usual sex-bomb traps. Gino Quilico complements her as a lyrical, somewhat self-conscious Marcello. Francesco Ellero d’Artegna (Colline) and Richard Cowan (Schaunard) provide properly youthful, agreeably sympathetic counterpoint.

The Parisian vistas convey bleak storybook charm. The colors are muted, sometimes patently artificial. Though arguably over-amplified, the Orchestre National de France plays con brio and, it would seem, con amore .

Mimi dies prettily--in her own bed, for a change. Fade-out time is still handkerchief time. Some things never change.

Comencini may adjust Puccini’s focus for the new medium. But he never alters the basic structure, never compromises the fundamental impact.

He is musical. It is reassuring.