Ramón Tebar Conducts 13 Met Performances of La Bohème for Debut

Conductor Ramón Tebar is leading 13 performances of "La Bohème" for his Metropolitan Opera debut, the culmination of a career built across Europe and the United States. He has conducted at the Teatro Colón, Opera Hong Kong, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Gran Teatre del Liceu, Teatro Real de Madrid, the Wiener Staatsoper and San Francisco Opera, and he has studied "La Bohème" for 30 years.

"The experience has truly been magnificent," Tebar told OperaWire. "When you hear about the Metropolitan Opera, you know it's one of the pinnacles of opera, a musical temple where I think we all aspire to make music someday."

He described feeling ready from his first day in the orchestra pit. "Perhaps I could have done the job technically as a conductor earlier in my career, but now I feel I have the depth and maturity to be at this important stage in my career."

How Does Zeffirelli's Monumental Set Behave Acoustically?

Tebar first saw the production, designed by Franco Zeffirelli, on video while in Spain. He questioned how the vast distances of Act II would affect the pit-to-stage relationship. His conclusion: the staging works as an "acoustic screen" that projects voices outward and reduces the apparent distance between conductor and singers.

"The visual effect Zeffirelli creates with this sense of monumentality and these vast dimensions is a stroke of genius," he said. The first and fourth acts remain more intimate, and Tebar has drawn extraordinarily soft pianissimos at both act endings — moments, he said, that "literally gave me goosebumps."

What Happens When Two Casts — and a Sudden Substitution — Collide?

Working with two contrasting casts, common in Europe but newer to New York, demands flexibility, Tebar said. One Mimì may be introverted; another may project the drama entirely differently. Tempi that suit one tenor can suffocate another.

Tenor Freddie de Tommaso stepped in for Stephen Costello at the last minute on opening night, with zero rehearsals. Tebar and de Tommaso had performed "La Bohème" together in Hamburg two years earlier. "Those are moments of pure adrenaline," Tebar said. The result, he added, "turned into a truly special and magical evening." Soprano Juliana Grigoryan and de Tommaso had performed the production together the previous season, which helped.

Tebar's flexibility has roots in his piano career. He accompanied Montserrat Caballé, Teresa Berganza, Plácido Domingo, Leo Nucci, Sherrill Milnes and Renata Scotto — a professional relationship with Scotto lasting 20 years. Those singers taught him that great artists can hold nearly opposite interpretations of the same work.

The Met Orchestra, he said, knows its repertoire — "La Bohème" has run roughly 1,500 times in company history, conducted by Toscanini at the premiere and later by Carlos Kleiber — yet listens and follows "to an almost astonishing degree," comparing it to the Vienna Philharmonic.

What Is Next for Opera Naples?

Tebar has served as Artistic and Music Director of Opera Naples for 12 years. He was appointed Artistic and Music Director of Florida Grand Opera in Miami in 2010 and stayed 10 years, until the pandemic. Earlier, he worked at Palm Beach Opera and as music director of the Palm Beach Symphony.

Opera Naples is now close to acquiring land for its own opera house, with an anonymous donation already covering the cost. The company collaborates with the Luciano Pavarotti Foundation and its widow-led legacy, reviving a competition Pavarotti founded in Philadelphia in the 1980s and 1990s, and runs the Renata Scotto Opera Naples Academy, drawing young singers from the Americas, Europe and Asia.

Twelve years ago, Tebar said, international singers confused Naples with Italy. Since then Ramón Vargas, Gregory Kunde, Isabel Leonard, Joseph Calleja, Jonathan Tetelman, Javier Camarena and Scotto have performed there; Calleja has returned five or six times, Kunde three times, Milnes four or five.

On audiences, Tebar rejected the crisis narrative, noting the Met's dress rehearsal drew more than 3,000 school children who stayed engaged for three hours. "It is a question of accessibility, visibility, and openness," he said — and every open door plants a seed that creates the audience of the future.