Carmen
Calixto Bieito has form; he’s long been seen
as opera’s bad boy, with a string of excesses behind him. ENO’s last production of
Carmen, by the film director Sally Potter, was ample proof
that Bizet’s masterwork is far from foolproof and many London operagoers have
awaited Bieito’s 2010 Barcelona staging with anticipation. While by no means traditional,
it’s a much more staid affair than earlier productions of Don
Giovanni and A Masked Ball and all the better for
it.
being an all-out triumph are central performances that don’t quite ignite but
melt into an otherwise impressive ensemble.
Ruxandra Donose’s Carmen is stripped of the usual clichés – fiery coquettishness,
sultry sensuality, pseudo-flamenco posturing – but has little else to replace
them. She acts subtly but it’s a
character that doesn’t lend itself to subtlety, so while it’s a good
performance it’s not quite Bizet’s irresistible temptress. There’s a blandness too in the Don José of
American import Adam Diegel and, between the two of them, the dialogue (thankfully
minimal) is almost incomprehensible due to heavy accents and poor
projection.
The surtitles are a god-send when
the vocalising starts and this is singing that nobody’s likely to go far to
hear, although both principals have fine moments, not least in the gripping
final scene. Vocal honours go to
Elizabeth Llewellyn as a superb Micaela, which avoids any sense of
mawkishness, while Leigh Melrose’s Escamillo is a variation of his Ned Keene
spiv (great for Britten, not quite so good for Bizet). He struggles a little with the lowest notes
and doesn’t quite convince us as to why a bunch of hairy-arsed squaddies would go
weak at the knees for him.
What the production has, and what makes
this the most stimulating evening of opera this season, is a coherence and
dramatic integrity that has maybe never been seen in Carmen
before. It doesn’t completely avoid
theatrical cliché – when will opera directors realise that throwing furniture
is not a valid indicator of strong feeling? – but it has so much dramatic dynamic
that the work is raised higher than the tawdry tale deserves. It’s also visually stunning most of the time,
with Alfons Flores’s simple sets creating beautiful images, such as the
brooding bull that dominates the third act.
Bieito moves his actors around the space with expert precision and a
superb eye for detail and the, sometimes surprising, settings add constant
freshness and clarity.
It’s unfortunate that cars in
opera don’t have engines and have to be pushed everywhere by chorus members
(another operatic cliché) because when the collection of battered Mercedes (no
pun on the name of one of the characters, I’m sure) gather in Act 3, they
create a brilliantly unexpected backdrop.
Bieito sets the opera at the time of Franco’s decline in the early 1970s
and there’s undoubtedly topical references and deep-seated resonances for the
Catalan director that may be lost on a London audience (the significance of the
dismantling of the bull, for instance, will be reliant on a programme note for
many).
In the pit Ryan Wigglesworth shows
himself to be more than just a contemporary music specialist with a lively and
generally swift account of this most romantic of scores. There’s a dewy glow in the whole musical
approach but it’s the dramatic quality of the production that will be
remembered, unless future runs (which are bound to happen) see more persuasive
casting in the lead roles.
– Simon Thomas
