B. Uhlig
La Monnaie’s new Carmen was initially staged in Aix in 2017. Like 1000’s of others, I noticed it on video afterwards, and although I used to be impressed by Michael Fabiano’s fervent dedication to Dmitri Tcherniakov’s manufacturing idea, I in any other case didn’t get pleasure from it a lot. I used to be bored by the unchanging set, and, although I’d discovered it intriguing when it was a novelty in 2012, a bit fed up, 13 years and several other productions on, with the director’s fixation with group remedy. I used to be glad to have an opportunity to see the manufacturing in the home this season and maybe, in a unique temper and totally different circumstances, change my thoughts, even when Fabiano sadly wasn’t scheduled to sing at my Sunday matinee.
For individuals who could not have already got seen or examine it, Dmitri Tcherniakov’s Carmen apparently makes use of Bizet’s full rating, together with passages historically lower, with out Ernest Guiraud’s recitatives however with utterly new spoken dialogues written, until I’m mistaken, by the director himself. The musical numbers are carried out inside a framing idea sustained by these temporary new texts. If I understood the copious program notes, the director felt that to revitalize the parable of Carmen for as we speak’s ‘emotionally blasé’ viewers, ‘crammed with despair and irony fed by their bitter experiences on each aspect,’ it must be stripped of what, by means of familiarity, have come to be ‘insipid clichés and vacationer curiosities.’ Right here is the framework he thus concocted (translated from this system):
‘A person affected by despair, affecting his libido, is taken by his spouse to an institution the place sufferers’ needs are re-awakened by role-playing works reminiscent of Carmen. The appearing out, by the therapist taking part in the title position, of erotic or impassioned conditions within the opera is meant to stimulate the newcomer’s faltering virility.’
As you’ll be able to see, this provides rise to a placing mise en abyme: to revitalize the parable of Carmen for us all, the director phases the revitalization of the role-player’s needs by means of the re-enactment of that very delusion. Not unexpectedly, it ends badly, for ‘José’ a minimum of.
The role-play takes place, from begin to end, within the atrium of a soulless 80s chain lodge of the Crowne Plaza type (or is it a clinic?): metal-framed glass doorways topped with inexperienced exit indicators, beige marble in every single place, geometrically-patterned flooring, boxy beige pillars, boxy brown-leather sofas and armchairs, low-cost, sq. espresso tables, two little safety cameras peering down, a water cooler on the rear, an elaborate however charmless ensemble of cut-glass ceiling lights, and ruched web curtains on the upper-story home windows.
‘José’ is led in by his spouse and given directions and a name-tag by the ‘administrateur,’ a facilitator performed by an actor. Reluctant and mocking at first, by the beginning of the third Act he’s insisting on taking the experiment additional. As, by the top, he’s tried a sexual assault on Carmen-the-therapist, earlier than stabbing her with a spring-loaded navaja provided by assistants, it’s declared a hit. And whereas champagne and bouquets are introduced in to have a good time, José-the-husband, not capable of distinguish between position and actuality, cowers in a huddle on the ground, caressed by his spouse, Micaëla.
The directing is a masterpiece of its type. The appearing, whether or not comedian, because it typically is – the lads, for instance gleefully act out the youngsters’s marches whereas the children sing offstage – or tragic, is impeccably managed, to startlingly convincing impact. Tcherniakov demonstrates as soon as extra what an excellent director he’s; you oggle at his talent in coaxing such excellent dramatic performances out of his soloists and chorus-members. However if you happen to don’t share his fascination with group remedy, whereas the result’s definitely ingenious – ‘technically’ fascinating – it could not really obtain his purpose of ‘revitalizing’ the opera’s ‘delusion’, a minimum of not for everybody current.
Supporting roles had been nicely forged. Each Christian Helmer and Pierre Doyen had been agency and mellifluous as Zuniga and Moralès respectively, and Enguerrand De Hys was even a little bit of a luxurious as Le Remendado. Claire Péron’s youthful Mercédès was eclipsed considerably by Louise Foor’s gleaming Frasquita, whose high notes soared very satisfactorily over the ensembles.
B. Uhlig
Enjoying Escamillo, Edwin Crossley-Mercer swaggered about in his white swimsuit and purple bowtie (incongruously bringing KFC’s Colonel Sanders to thoughts) along with his standard, good-looking attraction. His singing remains to be upright and forthright and properly phrased, however the sound of his voice, and even now his diction, appear to be turning woolly, dampening his vocal affect, one thing I observed earlier this season when he sang Créon in Médée on the Opéra Comique.
Anne-Catherine Gillet is a seasoned Micaëla; it was one of many first roles I noticed her in, in 2009, when the fabulous Anna Caterina Antonacci sang Carmen below Gardiner, and a unique Fabiano, Fabiano Cordeiro, stepped in so close to the final minute that I didn’t even catch his identify, and needed to discover it out later. (When even skilled singers are afraid of working for Gardiner, think about stepping in out of nowhere!) Gillet’s voice remains to be as silvery and has saved its fast vibrato – ‘silvery, tremulous’ I wrote 16 years in the past, ‘with much more quantity than, from her timbre, you’d count on.’ Her voice now has a pleasantly old style ‘soubrette’ type of sound, and he or she performed the spiky, bourgeois spouse, in a neat, pink coat with a dinky purse, pearls, and her hair rolled up in a French pleat nicely.
In a manufacturing of this type, the dramatic urgency of the appearing means you’re much less centered on the singing alone. This was in Attilio Glaser’s favor as her Don José husband. I wasn’t alone, as I discovered when chatting with pals on the interval, in being concerned about the way forward for his voice – or voices, as he appeared to have a number of – if he carries on as we heard him on Sunday. Singing softly, within the center vary, he’s high-quality, however his high, whether or not head or chest, sounds painfully uncomfortable: onerous, precarious, typically sharp.
I’m not an expert, in fact, simply an novice who’s been to lots of operas, so I’m actually speaking (or on this case, writing) out of the highest of my head. However two ideas got here to my thoughts as I sat there: one was that he maybe must name in assist to handle his evidently highly effective instrument extra soundly; the opposite was that he could have been pointed, when youthful (I don’t understand how previous he’s, however see he debuted as Werther in Klagenfurt in 2019) in direction of the flawed fach. Mightn’t he be a baritone?
B. Uhlig
Presumptuous of me. However I’ve learnt that, as we become old, expertise could flip to intuition, giving us hunches that develop into proper. His dedication to the manufacturing idea was as full as Fabiano’s on video, and his burly body (in a blue swimsuit and tan sneakers) made him fairly scary when roused, in order I implied above, his appearing compensated for what gave the impression of vocal waywardness. However we had been all fairly frightened for the way forward for the younger man’s voice and profession.
Like many singers first heard in ‘HIP’ performances of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century roles, Stéphanie d’Oustrac (whom I first met in José Montalvo’s kaleidoscopic manufacturing of Rameau’s Les Paladins so way back that it predates my weblog) has progressed into what could be regarded as heavier roles over newer years. With Carmen, she’s at her restrict, definitely, and at instances her singing is compelled, particularly within the chest. However her high is sounder and extra ringing than ever and, as she’s adopted this manufacturing from its debut in Aix, her appearing – whether or not arch and playful or fiercely dramatic – is exceptionally true. Once more, dramatic urgency, pressure of conviction, compensate absolutely for infrequent vocal shortfalls.
Within the pit, below Nathalie Stutzmann, La Monnaie’s orchestra was in peak type. Carmen has the form of rating that suited them nicely even earlier than Altinoglu took them to unsuspected heights in Parsifal and the Ring. Their taking part in was agency and heat however nonetheless clear and detailed, colorfully highlighting Bizet’s good orchestration and melodic invention. This system notes asserted proudly that each orchestra and refrain, performing Bizet’s rating with out cuts (albeit with brand-new dialogues) had been simply the dimensions of these current on the Opéra Comique in Bizet’s day. They forgot, although, that in Bizet’s day, the devices would have had a softer sound; on Sunday, given among the casting selections, the quantity from the pit was maybe a smidgin greater than wanted, however the taking part in was (to resort to an old style cliché; I’ve been studying Shaw) undeniably rousing.
The refrain was additionally in high-quality fettle, the one tiny caveat being that, although Nathalie Stutzmann was firmly in cost, Tcherniakov’s detailed directing typically gave every of them a lot to do, scuttling across the stage and over the sofas, that it was onerous for the conductor to maintain the whole lot tightly in synch.
