Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center, N.Y.; January 12, 2009
Bizet’s Carmen has been a mess at the Met since 1986. First Peter Hall’s graceless production made everyone look awkward, and then, in 1996, Franco Zeffirelli’s huge, animal-filled extravaganza, with enough extras to fill a train took over and managed to fail even on the shallowest of levels. Furthermore, the last cast I saw starred German soprano Waltraud Meier as Carmen, a mistake of grand proportions. It has been enough to turn a person against this great opera.
Happily, the spell has been broken by British director Richard Eyre whose new production for the Met was premiered on New Year’s Eve. He has updated the opera from the 1830s to the 1930s, in the midst of the Spanish Civil War, an era of cruelty and oppression in keeping with the opera’s criminality and violence. But he has not tried to “re-think” the opera; he has, rather, against his updated backdrop, focused on the characters’ stubborn refusal to submit, and by so doing has given us strong-willed, tough people to deal with. The locals resent the soldiers; the cigarette girls are poor workers in their unappealing outfits, emerging from a basement workplace into what seems like almost toxic heat and humidity. The first thing we see is a black curtain with a blood-red gash; the motif is repeated in the last act, when Carmen is wearing a dress of precisely that pattern. Rob Howell, the set and costume designer, has placed a fence around what appears to be a ruined bullring in the first act. The set itself is a huge drum-like structure that revolves to change the scenes; it is made of broken walls evoking a city (or world) in disrepair and decay. The imagery remains strong throughout the opera; there are no bits of controversial silliness. It casts the right spell.
The new Carmen, Elina Garanca, previously appreciated for her lovely, if cool, Rossini singing, turns in a performance of great subtlety and depth. No common hip-swinger, she doesn’t cavort during the Habanera; she takes the time to wash her legs with water from a bucket. It’s as sexy as it is natural – and natural is the key word. She’s quick to anger – she kicks and spits. But her general indifference is as alluring as it is frightening; the only time sentiment enters into Garanca’s characterization (under Mr Eyre’s direction), is when she hugs Frasquita and Mercedes right before her final confrontation with Don José. She knows she’s going to die, offers a loving farewell, and goes on to her fate.
Ms Garanca’s voice is light and beautiful from top to bottom and she never pushes it. Hers is a Carmen sung without chest voice, and as such is all the more remarkable since a big sound, with dark low notes, can almost create a character alone. But this wasn’t needed; set in this production, with a remarkably sympathetic conductor (about whom more below), her Carmen is a sensation. Incidentally, the fact that she’s beautiful certainly helps.
Roberto Alagna’s Don José is wonderfully thought-through and a very sad character. He begins as just another soldier in Franco’s Guardia Civil; he is easily smitten and keeps trying to escape from Carmen but he can’t find the moral courage and he’s self-hating as a result. His final scene is a study in lunacy. Vocally, Mr Alagna is in fine shape and if there is the occasional strain on loud, high notes, he makes up for this with intelligent, nuanced phrasing. His duet with Micaela was lovely. Baritone Mariusz Kwiecien makes a dashing Escamillo, with the low notes in the “Toreador Song” in place if not strong, and the rest of the role sung ideally. He’s ferocious in the third act and seductive in the last. Barbara Frittoli’s Micaela is a bit mature, both vocally and physically, but she convinces anyway. Keith Miller is a terrific, dark-toned Zuniga and the others in the cast are splendid. The children’s chorus, by the way, has never sounded (or acted) better.
Canadian Yannick Nézet-Séguin, in his Met debut, could easily be seen as the star: From a big, fast opening prelude he moved to a far more intimate, textured, indeed, very French approach: The chorus of cigarette girls and admiring men in act one is normally a moment one waits through until Carmen emerges; here, we heard a languorousness, a sensuality, that rarely comes through. The second-act quintet was spotless; the brief, slashing commentary from the low strings when Carmen is taunting José added a fine bitterness. There are dozens of small details to relish and for once, the last act prelude does not sound like cats knocking over trash cans.
Christopher Wheeldon’s choreography includes two ravishing moments during the soft preludes to acts one and three – pas de deux brilliantly lit by Peter Mumford (the first in blood red, the second in iridescent blue), danced by Maria Kowroski and Martin Harvey – in addition to naturalistic, good-time Spanish fare elsewhere.
Carmen will be repeated ten more times until May 1st, albeit with varying casts. It’s a great success.
Robert Levine
