October, 2005 - Nr. 10
Carmen
Lucille de Saint André
We always love Carmen. And so we went happy to see it performed by The Canadian Opera Company for the first time in 12 years at The Toronto Hummingbird Centre. Georges Bizet’s lively and vigorous opera was first performed at the Theatre National de l’Opéra-Comique in Paris in 1875 to such muted applause that it closed after only 48 performances. Bizet, depressed and disappointed, died three months later. He never knew that it would become one of the worlds’ best-loved operas.
Last night’s performance got substantial and prolonged, but not madly enthusiastic, applause by a sensibly, not overly fashionable dressed audience. No one cried bravo as they do at the Met’s matinees, but then this is Toronto and not New York. The show is an international co-production, which is a good thing routinely, disregarding the old chestnut about a camel being a committee’s effort of creating a horse. Some critics have speculated on "too many cooks," while others believe opera companies frequently shack up.
The music was, as usual, the main thing and Conductor Richard Bradshaw and the COC orchestra did the Bizet score full honours and the show moved right along, but then ran into a major roadblock jumping from 1830s Spain to 1940s South America. Caused by the American stage director Mark Lamos, it somehow changed the opera’s impact to less color in both costumes by François St-Aubin and sets by designer Michael Yeargan.
We’re used to see Carmen in blazing colors but Russian mezzo-soprano Larissa Kostiuk was clad in muted earth tones which sometimes made her get lost in the first three acts’ crowd scenes. That is not to say that we did not admire her tall sexuality and smooth effortless voice as the gypsy girl who seduces Don José each time we had located her on-stage. Her dance numbers could perhaps have been more seductive but then she is, first of all, a singer. It was a pleasant surprise to see the smugglers in white suits and straw hats (looking a little like mafia types) and the crowd scenes (at night) were enlivened with flashlights. This was very carefully done and, surprisingly, very effective. No more business of holding aloft clumsy lanterns. Changing period can sometimes work. A more basic departure was the naturalistic acting, not just in little bits and "touches," but in this production it pervaded everything. This, however, is the trend of the times.
It can clash with the customary broad stylized movements we are all conditioned to expect in opera. In Act three it blended successfully. The broad blocking of the chorus is more evident on the mountain-side setting with the rising levels upstage.
The opening was a delight. The gorgeous ‘curtain’, which turned out to be sliding panels, parted like a lightning-bolt. On the backdrop appears magically the ghostly face of Carmen. It’s not just movies that have ‘special effects.’
Act One opens with the whole theatre brought into the guardhouse that looks out onto the Square through on iron fence. This tends to emphasize, right at the outset, that this is the story of Don José. The iron fence is the border between order and disorder and a reminder that the world is full of danger. In the course of the story we learn that even a corporal of the guard is not immune to that danger.
We loved the last act where the crowd festively mingles in front of the bullfight ring and later ascends a red staircase to sit and watch the bullfight while beneath them the last tragic scene of Carmen’s death is enacted.
Carmen and Don José play out their last scene in the mixed gloom and sunlight beneath the stands of the arena with the crowd and their busy fluttering fans in the brilliant sunlight above. The usual practice is to put this scene into the square before the façade of the bullring with the distant sound of the crowd in the background. This change turned out to be a real plus.
At the final curtain some of the crowd lean over the parapet frozen in horror at the sight below. It is like nothing so much as a scene painted by Goya and truly unforgettable.
Don José, played by Romanian tenor Atilla B. Kiss, was more earth-bound than a passionate, lost, lyrical, doomed lover of the gypsy girl Carmen so it was hard to feel real sorry for him when he crashed. Micaëla, Don José’s country girl love, was sung by Spanish soprano Ana Ibarra who was strong in the opening act but seemed to fade in the third act.
The Canadian cast in supporting roles acquitted itself very well. In a large international cast the singers from Canada did very commendable work. Baritone Peter Barrett was DancaVre, the smuggler. Baritone Joshua Hopkins sang MoralPs, an officer of the guard, and Bass Alain Coulombe was Zuniga, the captain. Sopranos MichPle Bogdanowicz played MercédPs, and Virginia Hatfield Frasquita, Carmen’s gypsy friends.
Possibly some of the principle singers didn’t have as much stage presence as one would have liked. But, all in all, despite some reservations, the COC’s Carmen is an impressive production with some very memorable moments.
