BWW Reviews: LA BOHEME ABANXAXHI, Hackney Empire, May 11 2012

What is 120 years and 5500 miles for theatre's magic to span? Nothing. Isango Ensemble's extraordinary La Boheme (in rep at the Hackney Empire until 3 May) takes Puccini's Parisian opera of the 19th century and locates it in a present day South African township - another place in which poverty and illness stalk a land overflowing with plenty and beauty. The result is a fusion of cultures, a fusion of music and a fusion of glorious, glorious voices that tell a truth bigger than a truth about Paris or Cape Town - a truth about mankind itself.

Adam Dornford-May and Peter Cann keep the storyline very close to the original. There are the artists scratching a living as best they can, the leech-like moneylenders and politicians to be appeased and seen off, the pleasures taken in drink and food when one can find it and the spectre of a death easily avoidable for those with access to medical care. Pauline Malefane is electrifying as Mimi, the object of Lungelo's (Mhlekazi "Whawha" Moisea) attentions, doomed to die in her lover's arms. Before that denouement - a slow tragic end that is the fate of many young people in South Africa even today - there's plenty of the simple joys of being young and in love, with dance as much as singing telling the tale.

For all the excellence of the principals, the stars of the show are the extaordinary musicans under the energetic direction of Mandisi Dyantyis. He conducts not a traditional orchestra of strings, woodwind etc, but collection of marimbas and steel drums, augmented by The Players' voices raised in harmonies that soar and swirl around the house like birds on the wing. Placed either side of the stage, it is sometimes impossible to take one's eyes away from the musicians as the elemental percussive sound transforms Puccini's melodies into an African argot accessible to all.

As is often the case with opera, it's probably a good idea to read up on the plot beforehand to allow an easy following of the narrative and the chance to let the music wash up and over you. And then wait for and wallow in the marriage of sound and stage as it forges the direct emotional connection across time and distance - an experience that lies uniquely within theatre's gift.