Metropolitan Opera's new "Carmen'

The Metropolitan Opera's new Carmen contains three outstanding elements "“ its Carmen, its Don José and the conductor"“ and their relative importance may well be in reverse order.

Let's start with Yannick Nézet-Séguin in the pit. The 34-year-old French-Canadian conductor makes a strong company debut, and he does so in a counter-intuitive way. His is not in the dominating, forceful manner that calls attention to the conductor's interpretation. He's not imposing like a Toscanini, Karajan or Muti. Instead, Nézet-Séguin shapes his concept around the vocal subtleties of each duet and ensemble as he encourages each singer to express his or her feelings. The result is an intimate, personal expression of emotions from the characters.

The preludes and entr'actes were gems, and Nézet-Séguin also gave delicate attention to the instrumental accompaniment of the vocal sections. As an experienced conductor of symphonic music, Nézet-Séguin obviously knows that opera is a different form, one built around the human voice.

More lyrical than ever

Tenor Roberto Alagna, as Don José, benefits from Nézet-Séguin's approach. In the opera's fourth performance this season (Jan. 12), Alagna sang more beautifully than I've ever heard him. I normally respect his musicianship and passion, and here he sounded more refined and lyrical than ever. He capped an ascending scale to a lovely pianissimo B-flat just before the end of his Flower Song, and the concluding note of the aria also was soft and tender.

Throughout the opera, Alagna presented an introverted José who couldn't resist the lure of the forthright Carmen. There were explosions of passion and physicality, which drew gasps from the audience, but mostly this José was repressed. In Act Four he confronted Carmen outside the bullring with quiet desperation. One critic wrote that Alagna and Elina Garanca lacked excitement in the finale, but I rather liked their fatalistic approach.

No chesty mezzo

Garanca makes an attractive dark-haired Carmen, and her voice is sensuous. It has a brightness almost like Angela Gheorghiu's (who sang opposite Alagna on an EMI recording) rather than a chesty mezzo sound. In fact, Garanca's voice loses volume and thrust in lower passages.

Garanca dispenses with hip swaying and castanet clicking, but her impersonation still seems mostly on the surface. Her characterization walks a narrow line between a happy-go-lucky rejection of societal norms and resignation to her fate. Is she a defiant mistress of her own destiny? Or does she feel powerless against the forces of a police state (in this production, Franco's fascist Spain)? I hope future seasons will bring more development and clarity.

As for readers who regret the change from the original casting of this production, I say: Try to imagine Roberto Alagna confronting his soon-to-be ex-wife, Angela Gheorghiu, with a knife as he sings, "I won't let you go. Damn you!"

Not such a plain Jane

The production's other major singers are Barbara Frittoli, who makes a lovely Micaela and sings nicely without ever convincing us that she's a plain woman from José's hometown in Andalusia; and Mariusz Kwiecien, who doesn't quite possess the physical stature of a matinee-idol toreador or the brassy vocal sound of such a character.

Richard Eyre's production, with sets and costumes by Rob Howell, gives us vivid moments but also confusing scenes. The tavern of Act II is welcoming, and the mountain pass of Act III is dramatic, while the outside of the bullring in Act IV is unexceptional. But the main square of Act I is a mess.

Instead of showing groups of locals"“ children, men and factory workers"“ moving across an open area like the real plaza in Seville, all of these people are crowded behind a chain-link fence. The foreground is filled with the soldiers. The only positive thing I can see about this arrangement is that it forces the chorus singing to be downstage, projecting strongly to the audience. And the work of the choruses is one of this production's greatest joys.

Dance innovation

One of Eyre's innovations is a pair of flamenco dancers who illustrate the passion of Carmen and José during two of the preludes. Their presence neither helps nor hurts the story telling, and their dancing is superb.

Another is the use of a turntable to show the inside of the bullring, immediately after José's confession that he killed Carmen. In the opera's final seconds we see Escamillo poised over a bull that he has slain. This seems apropos and justifiable when you consider how often Bizet's music calls attention to the bullfight during the final duet between Carmen and José.

Clergymen appear on stage during the Act IV procession, but the Catholic presence in 1930s Spain should be shown even more strongly. It was political intervention by the Church that brought down the Spanish Republic in 1936. A display of this power would accentuate the fact that Carmen's free spirit couldn't prevail in a nation with such fear of divine will.

Repression and racism

The updating from the 1830s to the 1930s is apt. It does no harm to the story, and it shows a period when repression was more overt than ever— when real Spaniards like Carmen and her gypsy friends were imprisoned or executed just for their refusal to respect authority.

Eyre hints at racism but doesn't illustrate it forcefully enough. The hometown of Don José and Micaela contained more Muslim culture than other regions of Spain. So how about showing us a dark-skinned tenor and soprano in those roles? Eyre has Franco's soldiers harass and fondle Micaela when she comes in search of José; such an action would be even more startling if they were white and she were dark.

A high-definition transmission to movie theaters on January 16 will later be telecast and issued on DVD. After that, nine more performances of Carmen will take place this season. Some of them will have Gheorghiu in the title role, opposite a different tenor.♦


To read Steve Cohen's review of the HD theatrical version, click here.