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Opera News, October 2015 |
Stephen J. Mudge |
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Bizét: Carmen, Chorégies d'Orange, 11. Juli 2015 |
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Carmen ORANGE, Chorégies d’Orange, 7/11/15
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DESTINY AT THE TURN OF A CARD was the theme of Louis Désiré’s new production
of Bizet’s Carmen for the Chorégies d’Orange, with Mikko Franck conducting
the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France (seen July 11). This was far
from the big fiesta that the nine thousand on the steps of the Roman theater
were waiting for. No pretty costumes or festive parades — out with
picturesque espagnolerie, in with a clean psychological drama. Not
surprisingly, the director was booed for his efforts on opening night and
did not take a curtain call for the broadcast performance, but the general
feeling was one of disappointment at the lack of arena-style spectacle. The
aesthetic of the giant playing cards that littered the stage quickly palled,
and although the acting of the soloists looked convincing from a critic’s
seat, those perched high up in the Provençal sky did not get many visual
thrills.
A few ideas were interesting — Carmen’s donning the
toreador’s cape as a wedding bond in the final act, for example — and the
relationship of José and Carmen was intently played. Conductor Franck
matched Désiré’s production with an understated and lyrical approach; there
were no flamboyant gestures or feverish excitement in his leadership but
rather a chamber-orchestra approach that almost looked forward to Debussy.
There were some lovely individual moments, but also passages that seemed
plodding and pedestrian, a situation not helped by the inattentive combined
choruses. There is no justification for using the clunking Guiraud
recitatives in a new Carmen when spoken dialogue can be kept to a minimum
and amplification poses no problem.
The evening was saved by one
towering performance — the Don José of Jonas Kaufmann. Among a decent
supporting cast, which included a good number of French singers, the tenor’s
diction was exceptional and his deep set vocal line quite remarkable. This
is a performance in the tradition of the late Jon Vickers, with as many
moments of soft singing as heroic outbursts. The flower song was gloriously
sung, with a caressing opening as well as a full-voiced pianissimo ascent to
the final top B-flat, earning the tenor the longest ovation of the evening.
His singing alone would place the tenor among the greats, but his acting of
the unstable character was also probing; in the final scene, his José seemed
convinced that if he begged Carmen gently enough, and struggled to stay
calm, she would capitulate. The character’s murderous loss of self-control
was left until the last possible moment, followed by an almost childlike
disbelief at what he had done. Opposite such febrile vocal power, Kate
Aldrich’s Carmen started at a disadvantage. She was in many ways a perfect
Carmen — her singing was well phrased, sexy and unexaggerated, and her
French is good. But for such a vast space, greater midrange power was
needed, especially to confront this particular José.
Inva Mula, the
Micaela, still has a totally reliable upper register capable of floating her
music’s high-lying lines with classic beauty, but the production concept
allowed her to play nothing beyond milksop innocence — a posture that
ill-suits the soprano at this stage of her career. The handsome but
anachronistically bearded bass-baritone Kyle Ketelsen was ideal vocally in
the awkward tessitura of the toreador Escamillo, scoring a brave triumph
with a somewhat sullen French public in the nation’s favorite aria.
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