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| Clementine Margaine (Carmen) and ensemble in "Carmen" |
Conductor: Andrea
Molino
Director: John
Bell
Set Design:
Michael Scott-Mitchell
Lighting Designer:
Trent Suidgeest
Costume Design:
Teresa Negroponte
Choreographed by:
Kelley Abbey
Presented by Opera
Australia
Joan Sutherland
Theatre, Sydney Opera House until 12th August 2016.
Performance on 21st
June reviewed by: Bill Stephens
One of the most
popular operas in the contemporary operatic repertoire, Georges Bizet’s "Carmen"
offers tantalizing challenges to directors looking for fresh ways to interpret
it. Among the more intriguing and successful was a 1943 African-American
Broadway version, re-titled “Carmen Jones”, set in a parachute factory in North
Carolina during World War 11, directed by Hazard Short.
This new
production of “Carmen” is Opera Australia’s third in as many years, and
following his brilliant “Tosca” last year, John Bell’s interpretation has been much
anticipated.
Bell has chosen to
set his version in Cuba, or as he writes in his program notes, somewhere "resembling today's
Havana", to allow him to concentrate on the psychology of the Carmen/ Don
Jose relationship and to "get away from the traditional setting with its
flamenco dancers, gypsies and toreadors".
Some directors
have done this by removing the ensemble scenes altogether, but in this version
the opera remains intact, although the synopsis in the printed program
confusingly contradicts the director by labelling the four acts as taking place
in “A square in Seville”, “Lillas Pastia’s tavern”, “In the Mountains” and
“Outside the Bullring in Seville”.
Michael
Scott-Mitchell's setting with its artfully crumbling Spanish architecture,
certainly suggests a plaza, in either Cuba or Seville. However, despite the
addition of strings of coloured lights in various scenes; a combi-van which
ingeniously converts into a pop-up take-away van for the Lillas Pastia scene; and
a truck and some wooden crates for the “mountains/warehouse” scene; the locale determinedly
remains the same plaza throughout the opera.
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| Opera Australia Chorus in "Carmen" |
Nor do Teresa
Negroponte’s cacophonous party shop costumes provide any sense of period or place,
although they do add plenty of unrestrained colour. The final procession before
the bullfight, with its piñata horses and garish lycra matador costumes feels
more like a carnival than a prelude to a bullfight.
The ensemble work
hard at being sultry or cheerful as required, but the staging of the crowd
scenes is curiously pedestrian. Kelley Abbey, whose choreography was such a
feature of the HOSA version of this opera, does manage to inject some excitement
into these scenes with flashy Latin ballroom-dance inspired routines, and some cute
rap-dance moves for the children, but as it’s the psychology of the characters
in this opera which most interests Bell, this production fires best when the
protagonists occupy centre-stage alone.
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| Margaret Trubiano (Mercedes) Yonghoon Lee (Don Jose) Clementine Margaine (Carmen) Jane Ede (Frasquita) |
Making her first
appearances with Opera Australia prior to playing this role with New York’s
Metropolitan Opera, French mezzo-soprano, Clementine Margaine takes some time
to hit her stride. Saddled with seriously dowdy costumes, her seductiveness
during the “Habanera” is very much on the surface, with little back kicks and
wrist flicks punctuating her lyrics, as she prowls the stage maneuvering to
capture the attention of Don Jose, the only man in the crowd who displays no
interest in her at all.
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| Clementine Margaine (Carmen) Yonghoon Lee (Don Jose) |
Once the two
connect however, the tension between them slowly begins to build, so that by
the time she reaches the “Card Song” in which she is able to reveal the full
extent of the warm lustrous tone that extends over the full range of her voice,
she is completely immersed in the role.
Korean tenor,
Yonghoon Lee is electrifying from the start as Don Jose. Already nominated for a Helpmann Award for his
performance in last year’s “Turandot”, Lee charts a compelling trajectory of a
man whose initial indifference eventually turns into a fatal attraction and then
uncontrollable obsession.
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| Clementine Margaine (Carmen), Yonhoon Lee (Don Jose) |
His singing is as
thrilling as his acting, especially during the lovely “Flower Song”, so that by
the time the final scene is reached, his descent from fresh faced youth to wild-eyed
psychopath has been so convincingly charted that its inevitability is
absolutely shattering.
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| Jonghoon Lee (Don Jose) - Natalie Aroyan ((Micaela) |
Natalie Aroyan’s interpretation
of Don Jose’s abandoned fiancé, Micaela, is delightfully convincing and beautifully sung,
but Michael Honeyman’s Escamillo, costumed oddly in a red satin suit, was curiously
avuncular and under-powered.
Among the smaller
roles, Jane Ede and Margaret Trubiano, as Carmen’s friends Frasquita and
Mercedes, and Luke Gabbedy and Kanen Breen as the smugglers Dancairo and
Remendado each lit up the stage on every appearance, as did Adrian Tamburini as
the swarthy soldier, Zuniga.
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| Margaret Trubiano (Mercedes) Michael Honeyman (Escamillo) Jane Ede (Frasquita) |
Bizet’s remarkable
score was superbly interpreted by the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra
under the baton of Andrea Molino, with their playing of intermezzos between
acts being especially satisfying. But the score conjures up visions of all
things Spanish so cogently that despite the excellent singing and dramatic clarity
of this production the music seemed distractingly at odds with the garish Cuban-inspired
visuals of this production.
Production images: Keith Saunders
This review also appears in Australian Arts Review. www.artsreview.com.au