| It's salutary to think that both of London's
opera houses' current staging of Bizet's Carmen is directed by a
woman. It's surely no coincidence: Carmen remains the very
embodiment of operatic Otherness, the title role offering perhaps the most
interesting, complex and controversial depiction of a woman in the whole
canon, and therefore it was an interesting prospect to entrust the piece to
someone of the same sex, rather than perpetuating the work's production
history, which has placed Carmen in the male gaze. No less interesting was
the fact that both productions opened to very mixed reviews – downright
pans, indeed, for Sally Potter's version for English National Opera, which
attempted to strip back the clichés and re-engage with what Bizet originally
set out to do. Some critics perceived that she had replaced one set of
clichés with another, and felt that what she had done was incoherent with
the text (though personally, I found Potter's imagination and visual flair
highly refreshing).
The opposite was the case when Francesca
Zambello's production for The Royal Opera opened at Covent Garden
in December 2006: 'too traditional', roared some of the critics, proving
that they're never happy. This new DVD of the original cast, broadcast by
the BBC over Christmas 2007, is an excellent memento of the production in
its most sparkling condition, where the time spent with the numerous extras
– including a large chorus, sizable group of children and live animals – as
well as in focusing the Personenregie, really paid off. It hasn't
looked quite this good since.
In Zambello's production, the tension is where it should be – in the
inexorable but suffocating attraction between Carmen and Don José. On DVD
especially, one can really see the increasing despair of José as he turns
his back on the regulated society to which he belongs and the wildness of
Carmen, who is determined to remain as free as the bird she mentions in her
signature aria. The casting is stronger from the dramatic point of view than
the musical one, but maybe that's the right priority for an opera that was
built on a strong literary foundation. Zambello and Antonio Pappano, the
conductor and Royal Opera Music Director, also seem to have chosen the text
according to dramatic impact rather than musical faithfulness, with a
mixture of recitative and dialogue, as well as some cuts that will upset
purists but make a potentially long work more digestible, as Zambello said
in interview with me in the week leading up to the production's opening.
There are some nice imaginative touches – Micaëla dons a soldier's jacket
during her rather insipid aria to heighten the sense of fear she has
undergone to travel to the gypsy camp, and at the beginning of the opera we
see José lying prostrate on the ground, as if the whole piece is one long
flashback – but on the whole it's plain cooking that serves the opera, and
the public, very well. Tanya McCallin's designs have been quite heavily
criticised but the burnt orange walls are surely a fitting evocation of
Seville; many of her costumes are particularly beautiful, such as Carmen's
splendid yellow dress for the final scene, even if the girls coming out of
the cigarette factory aren't exactly flattered by what they're given to
wear.
I must confess that it slightly knocks things off balance that the
performance is dominated by Jonas Kaufmann as José, rather than the title
character. I haven't seen Kaufmann in such electric form before or since,
and the DVD's primary value is in preserving a near-ideal role assumption.
The physicality of his performance renders the sometimes two-dimensional
José into a more interesting creation; as the plot progresses, his
appearance becomes more ragged and rough, so that in the thrillingly-acted
José-Escamillo duet there's a palpable feeling of danger in the air. I've
heard more vocally secure and accomplished renditions of the 'Flower Song',
but even as the catch in his voice causes a moment of uncertainty at the
height of the vocal arch, it's so obviously born of emotion that the
performance is still moving.
Like Kaufmann, Anna Caterina Antonacci (in the title role) sports
impeccable French, so that the spoken dialogue – often embarrassing when
delivered by opera singers – really crackles as it should. When José and
Carmen are alone just before the end of the first act, as well as during the
post-Flower Song duet and the finale of the whole opera, the tension between
Antonacci and Kaufmann is superb, and she sings her short aria about
fate in Act 3 very poignantly. However, I'm afraid the vocal allure seen in
the finest interpreters of this role is lacking, so that while Antonacci
does a more than competent job, it's not the most excitingly sung Carmen on
record by a long way.
Ildebrando D'Arcangelo falls in the same category for me: he's credible as
the character but is a safe pair of hands rather than a great Escamillo,
from the vocal point of view. Similarly, Norah Amsellem is heartfelt but not
the most polished Micaëla. In fact, some of the smaller roles are more
notably sung: Matthew Rose and Jacques Imbrailo, two ex-Young Artists, do an
excellent job of Zuniga and Morales, and both Elena Xanthoudakis' Frasquita
and Viktoria Vizin's Mercedes stand out, the latter taking over the title
role for the Cast B performances.
Conducting without a baton, Antonio Pappano derives sensuality from the
orchestra and alter singing from the chorus. Yet for me there's a need for a
little more abandon than Pappano is prepared to give, especially in the
first two acts. Something seems to happen in Act 3, where the voltage of the
orchestral playing gets much higher, and those final stabbing statements of
Carmen's chromantic 'fate' motif in the strings just before her death show
us what could have been achieved elsewhere. For pure refinement, though, you
can't beat Pappano's approach, and his empathy with the singers during the
more intimate moments make them more prominent than the usually rousing
crowd scenes.
Shame on Decca for releasing the DVD with no extra features to speak of. I
don't know why it was deemed unnecessary to transfer what I recall as being
an interesting introduction and interval documentary involving Pappano
during the television broadcast; at the time, I felt more connected to his
interpretation of the work by hearing him talk about it, and I think it's a
shame to have presented this in so bare a form.
Nevertheless, the HD Widescreen 5.1 Surround Sound is immaculate, and
Kaufmann's large fanclub shouldn't wait to get hold of the DVD. |
Anna Caterina Antonacci mez Carmen
