'La Boheme' transformed in 2012 stagings on DVD

Taking the 1963 sets by Heike Scheele that he grew up watching, Herheim begins the opera with Mimi's death — usually the performance's final moment. And she succumbs to cancer rather than consumption.

Only after Mimi flatlines does the music begin, and the opera is a series of flashbacks in Rodolfo's mind as he refuses to accept her death. Rodolfo's garret transforms into a hospital ward and back.

Mimi alternately appears to be somewhat healthful looking and bald from her treatments. Much of the chorus is also bald in the jarring Christmas Eve scene at the Cafe Momus, and the landlord Benoit, the toy salesman Parpignol, the drum major and Musetta's friend, Alcindoro, all are haunting personifications of death. Marcello and Musetta sometimes morph into medical staff.

Much of the poetry is lost in the third act, intended by Puccini and librettists Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica to be set on the snowy outskirts of Paris, but here the surroundings divert to a hospital Reparto di Oncologia that includes a patient with an IV tube.

Jennifer Rowley (Musetta) gives the best portrayal, with Marita Solberg (Mimi), Diego Torre (Rodolfo) and Vasilij Ladjuk (Marcello) somewhat stiff, as if they were confined by the direction. Conductor Eivind Gullberg Jensen has difficulty establishing a flowing mood and pace.