Opera Company's "Carmen' (1st review)

Most performances of Bizet's Carmen sound like grand opera, lacking intimacy, and many stagings have been updated to the Spanish Civil War or a bleak modernistic no-man's-land— settings that overlook the plight of an independent woman in 19th-Century Spain.

By contrast, Bizet would like this production of his opera: It's true to his concept and to his period.

This production benefits from good singing and acting, but the artistic approach is its greatest asset. Artistic director Robert Driver, stage director David Gately and conductor Corrado Rovaris chose to use the original version of Carmen that includes spoken dialogue— delivered naturally and conversationally, without stagy declamation— in the midst of musical scenes.

This format fills in plot details while it fills out the characters, an approach that definitely heightens audience involvement in the story.

Also, the costuming and scenery were appropriate to Bizet's 1870s, when Carmen's behavior was more truly revolutionary than it would have been during the later uprising of Francisco Franco's fascists. Granted, there's good drama in the clash between the political and social extremes of Spain in the 1930s, but spotlighting that issue diverts attention from the personal tragedies of Carmen and Don José.

A radiant Micaela

Another big plus was the casting of Ailyn Pérez as Micaela. Too often this girl from Don José's home village is presented as dowdy. Pérez is young and beautiful, and no one made any attempt to cover that up. (She's traditionally and modestly dressed, yes, but not frumpy.) She sang radiantly, too.

This Micaela provided a significant counterweight to Carmen, presenting Don José (not to mention the rest of us) with genuinely difficult choices: traditional values versus modern, loyalty versus liberation, a dutiful and faithful woman versus one who demands the freedom to do whatever she wants until she tires of it.

Not only was Micaela youthful; the whole cast was younger than the Carmen ensembles we usually see. Most of the roles were performed by recent graduates of Curtis and the Academy of Vocal Arts who are now world-class professionals (like Pérez). The ensembles were convincingly acted and musically precise. The smugglers' quintets in the tavern and mountain scenes were especially well executed.

Effortlessly sexy

Rinat Shaham in the title role is the veteran in the cast (she graduated from Curtis in 1998) but she looks young and sultry, with long black hair. Her Carmen is proud and effortlessly sexy, not relying on flashy exposure of skin. Her voice was even from gleaming top to rich bottom.

Don José was David Pomeroy, a newcomer to Philadelphia whose voice is more lyric than heroic, thus giving him a proper aura of inexperience. The one thing missing is a sense of how far he fell from his stature as a soldier, after he deserted to follow Carmen. Tenor Hugh Smith, in the Opera Company's 2002 production, gave a more heart-rending display of desperation.

Jonathan Beyer's tall good looks made him visually perfect as Escamillo the toreador, although his singing was a notch below that level. Conductor Corrado Rovaris chose good tempi and kept the cast and chorus in synch. I've heard more powerful Carmens, like those led by Yannick Nézet-Séguin at the Met two years ago, but this production communicated more directly with our emotions.♦


To read another review by Robert Zaller, click here.