Carmen at the National Arts Centre: A Rousing Finale Makes the Evening Worth Every Minute.

Carmen at the National Arts Centre: A Rousing Finale Makes the Evening Worth Every Minute.

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Don José (David Pomeroy), Carmen (Alessandra Volpe)

Photo by Wayne Cuddington.

Carmen, based on Prosper Merimée’s novella has been slightly altered by the Meilhac and Halévy libretto but the essence of the melodrama remains. Given all the heart tugging material set in those “exotic” surroundings of Andalucia and the mountains of southern Spain, it is not hard to keep an audience interested during four acts. That is most certainly the case with this Opera Lyra production which, in spite of not being one of their most memorable performances, received a standing ovation when the curtain fell.

The music , under the direction of Tyrone Paterson was well executed, the sets and props (courtesy of Lyric Opera of Kansas City) were extremely well conceived for the many set changes; the ramparts of Seville, the entrance to the Cigarette factory, the dark passages through the mountain, and even a lively Inn where the bohemians, the smugglers and the soldiers carouse. The costumes were excellent, right down to the bull fighting team that marched out on stage in Act IV, on the way to the bull ring.

Still, this performance took a long time to pull itself out of a slow and soporiphic first act which almost put me to sleep, In spite of the obvious attempts by director Bernard Uzan to vary the rhythms and create the sense of excitement which the music suggests. On the other hand, the children’s chorus a parody of the soldiers’ chorus , directed by Jamie Lobak, with moquing gestures and a great sense of playfulness, was quite delightful. But, even the scintillating entrance of the magnificently bell-toned Micaëla (soprano Lara Ciekiewicz) looking for the “Brigadier Don José to tell him about his poor dying mother, was not enough to arouse those poor inert soldiers and give them the energy they needed to tear off her clothes with any real gusto. Those were not terribly lusty, hot blooded soldiers eyeing all “those strange women” in the central plaza of Seville or watching the arrival of those free spirited women from the cigarette factory. Even they appeared rather stilted as they rose out of wafts of smoke like playful nymphs, supposedly the object s of these men’s desire. A Little bit of Wagner’s Niebelungen later met Les Misérables (at the end of Act II) in a staging that went over the whole repertoire in a serious attempt to make it all exciting and bring in touches of popular musical theatre was good idea. Brian MacDonald did such things with Gilbert and Sullivan and it worked very well indeed. .

The first moments of Act II actually suggested a tightly choreographed event that killed the physicality of this heightened realism by imposing slow motion flamenco arm movements on all those women to suggest free and passionate gypsies . However, those gestures were repeated throughout the show until they lost their meaning and became exceedingly annoying. The seductive Seguidilla where Carmen pours out all her charm on Don José when she is tied up in Act I, and ready to be taken away , became a suavely flirtatious moment with the long cord that winds and unwinds showing who is bound to whom, in more ways than one. Although her seduction is a strong moment in that first act and her voice is beautiful, Volpe kept her volatility at a minimum, she was rather subdued in fact and it created the impression that something was not quite right.

A similar problem seeped into the beginning of Act II, at the Inn of Lillas Pastias where Carmen is waiting for the return of Don José who has spent a month in prison for allowing her to escape.

There, the beautifully chaotic crowd sang well under Laurence Ewashko’s direction but the choreography of the crowd actually appeared overdirected, as the wild dancing became those lame flamenco gestures. Even Carmen (mezzo soprano Alessandra Volpe,), whose Chanson Bohème was exciting as she dances for the clients, was choreographed with leg and hand movements that did not fit. Why didn’t they just bring in some real flamenco dancers to create some real gypsy atmosphere and leave the singers to act and sing, doing away with this weak gesturing that projected an image of pure amateurism.

Much of this irritation and lack of presence was slowly rectified however, as the atmosphere became more somber, more tense, the music more dramatic, forcing the singers to bring more emotional substance to voices that were generally strong and highly dramatic.

Escamillo the toreador (Baritone Corey Crider) had a glint in his eye and lovely baritone sounds but he almost seemed too juvenile and was missing the powerful presence of the local hero that sent women’s hearts fluttering. On the other hand, bass Alain Coulombe as Zuniga, José’s Lieutenant, had a fine rich imposing voice that ironically gave him authority, even though Carmen tossed him off like all the others. At times, the spoken dialogue (and there is much of it) seemed to hinder those singers who were not francophones, making them appear extremely uneasy when they were not singing and the malaise disrupted the performance several times. .

Most delightful was the patter quintet where the t wo women smugglers tell the importance of women in their smuggling operation. The music was the highlight there but the singing especially foregrounded the dramatic voice of soprano Arminè Kassabian ( Mercédès) who made her presence felt on several occasions during the evening .

Don José (David Pomeroy) developed slowly throughout the evening, punctuating his performance with glowing renderings of some of Bizet’s most beautiful arias. His “flower song” in Act II, where he sings how he dreamed about Carmen while he was in prison, was a lyrical moment, almost a hymn to his love that the baritone captured magnificently. Then his performance reached greater heights in Act IV with his tortured, and pulsating pleading, a lover driven to his wit’s end by the taunting of Carmen. This bedraggled figure, begging Carmen to come back to him before he plunges the knife into her, was the perfect melodramatic ending to an impossible love story that the music and the singers brought to a perfect climax.

Carmen (Alessandra Volpe) was a striking figure who tantalized the men and threw herself around the stage in great flirtatious gestures of but often her voice, though very good, was not forceful enough, to create a disturbing presence. She did portray herself as a stinging and nasty tease whenever she encountered Micaela, her sweet and righteous alter ego . She also created the proper atmosphere during the “Card Aria”. As the gypsies are telling their fortunes, Carmen interrupts their playfulness by pulling the Ace of spades and transforming the exercise into a prediction of a somber destiny. Her lower register resounded most beautifully in this sequence as she incarnated a creature that brought death with her every gesture.

The final act where the violent exchange between Carmen, ready to accept her fate, and Don José driven to despair and then murder, as the Toreador music blares in the background , was a rousing ending that did justice to the work, even if it did take this performance some time to evolve into a truly cohesive and stage event. . Carmen plays again on Saturday the 14th in Southam Hall.

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