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Passion, rage and glorious music
Colour and excitement as the crowds rush forward, held back by a rope at the front of the stage, with a hint of My Fair Lady, to greet the arrival of the sporting stars of the day, the bullfighters.. Carmen
Welsh National Opera
Birmingham Hippodrome
WNO’S Carmen is
a bit of a dull affair on the surface. A dreary three sided box of a
setting, mixed with a dark, closed bar full of stacked tables and chairs
and a mountaintop at night - none of the glorious light, colour or heat
of 19th
Century Seville. So it is up to the cast to being some life and
vibrancy to Bizet’s tale of love, jealousy and passion and what a
splendid job they do, in no short measure due to young conductor James
Southall. A mere stripling of a lad in conductor terms, a
former organ scholar who has performed on piano, organ and cello, he
should have a golden future ahead of him. Standing higher than most conductors, where the
top of a head or a waving baton is all that is normally seen, he becomes
part of the performance himself. The young maestro seems to live every note,
happily singing along
From the opening bars of the overstore, one of
the most recognisable starts in theatre, the tone is set for an
emotional roller coaster. Mezzo-soprano Alessandro Volpe is a splendid
Carmen, sensuous, attractive, sultry, with a voice full of colour,
emotion and power in a performance all the more remarkable in that this
was her penultimate performance in the role for now - with a child due
early in the New Year – best wishes for that. Her baby will at least
enter the world with a good grounding in Bizet!
She manages to sing with contempt, defiance,
sexuality and seduction in her voice, all in the same song at times. If
ever a singer was born to play a role she is it. Tenor Peter Wedd is a good foil as Don José, he
has a fine voice and his La fleur que tu m'avais jetée, the
flower song, is one of the vocal highlights. In truth the good Don is just that, a bit too
good, although he is reduced to the ranks and imprisoned and forced to
desert from the army and become a brigand all because of his love for
her – whatever happened to a nice meal and a bunch of flowers to win the
heart of fair lady – he has no real spark of bad boy bravado or danger
to ignite Carmen’s simmering gypsy passion. Carmen is surrounded by
smugglers, brigands and assorted low life where the good Don comes over
as a bit of a wimp. Not so the new love in her life, toreador
Escamillo, who appears to be built for opera rather than bull fighting
in the form of powerful Australian bass-baritone Simon Thorpe, full of
flamboyant gestures and booming voice. He introduces himself with one of
the most famous and recognisable songs in the whole of Opera, The
Toreador’s Song. An outsider to the love triangle around the
barracks and bullring is Micaëla, a girl from José’s home village, who
brings him messages from his mother. Jessica Muirhead gives us a rather
sweet and innocent country girl with a clear, soprano voice that grows
in power and emotion as does her role as she tries to rescue José from
the clutches of Carmen and then has to tell him his mother is dying. In
an ideal world José would do what his mother wants and head off home
with her to settle down and get married, but when was opera ever about
ideal worlds? There is good support from bass Aidan Smith as
the bullying lieutenant Zuniga and baritone Julian Boyce and tenor It is only in the final act that the colour and
sunlight of Seville appear as the crowds gather around orange sellers to
see the bullfighters arrive, which is another chance for an lively group
of young lads to shine as street urchins. They had all taken on board that most basic of
stage directions – on stage you act all the time not just when you are
speaking or singing.
Carmen and her bullfighter express their love for
each other, seen by José, and when he confronts Carmen and pleads with
her to come back to him and she contemptuously refuses, Carmen’s gypsy
Tarot cards have taken a turn for the worse - after all this is opera,
so somebody has to fail to make the final curtain – so we see José with
bloodies hands, trudging off alone into the sunset as the curtain slowly
falls. Christian Fenouillat’s set is basic relying on
Christophe Forey’s lighting to bring a bit of life along with Agostino
Cavalca’s excellent costumes. Caroline Chaney, the revival director, seems to
have beefed up into Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser’s original, and
with the enthusiasm and coaxing of conductor James Southall and the
excellent WNO Orchestra, the result is an enjoyable and memorable
performance of one of the most popular operas in the repertoire. To
20-11-14 Roger Clarke
19-11-14 WNO’s Moses in Egypt is
performed on Friday, 21-11-14 and William Tell on Saturday, 22-11-14.
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with
chorus and solos, coaxing every emotion, nuance and shades of colour
from the score and encouraging the, as always, excellent WNO Orchestra.
Cárthaigh Quill make good smugglers as Le Dancaïre and le Remendado as
well as some lovely singing from the other soloists including Emma
Carrington and Amy Freston as Carmen's co-workers in the local
cigarette factory Mercédès and Frasquita.