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United Kingdom Bizet, Carmen: Soloists, Children’s Chorus and Additional Chorus, Chorus (refrain director: Mark Biggins) and Orchestra of the English National Opera / Kerem Hasan (conductor). London Coliseum, 9.2.2023. (MB)
Production:
Director – Calixto Bieito
Revival director – Jamie Manton
Set designs – Alfons Flores, Kieron Docherty
Costumes – Mercè Paloma
Lighting – Bruno Poet, Marc Rosette
Cast:
Carmen – Ginger Costa-Jackson
Don José – Sean Panikkar
Micaëla – Carrie-Ann Williams
Escamillo – Nmon Ford
Zuniga – Keel Watson
Moralès – Christopher Nairne
Frasquita – Ellie Laugharne
Mercédès – Niamh O’Sullivan
Dancaïro – Matthew Durkan
Remendado – Innocent Masuku
Lillas Pastia – Dean Street
Mercédès’s daughter – Fatima Hammad
Whatever occurred to Calixto Bieito’s Carmen? I’ve seen it twice beforehand at ENO (in 2012 and 2015) and loved it tremendously. It has been revived since in London, nevertheless it dates again to the 1999 Festival Castell de Peralada and has been seen at various homes, Barcelona, San Francisco, and Oslo included. Maybe it has simply had its day; with occasional, intriguing exceptions, few issues date so rapidly as stage productions. I feel it’s most likely greater than that, although. By the time of its third ENO revival, the hyperlink with Bieito appears tenuous, as if these concerned would relatively be at work on a brand new manufacturing, a manufacturing of their very own. We are left with units and costumes which have typically misplaced their freshness, in what appears to be fairly a distinct general method, sitting uneasily, even incoherently, with Bieito’s radicalism: a softer radicalism, admittedly, than in lots of his stagings, but radicalism nonetheless. Sadly, most of the objects of Bieito’s critique have both kind of disappeared or discovered themselves (unwittingly?) remodeled into objects of appreciation.
One appears to be like in useless for any actual sense, past the uniforms, that this is perhaps the dying days of Franco’s Spain – and uniforms, particularly in a drama involving military officers, are hardly restricted to that point and place. The violence is extra generalised, much less clearly motivated. These are, it appears, merely a bunch of nasty individuals, Don José included. It is a standpoint, I suppose, but to not my thoughts an particularly illuminating one. Perhaps extra significantly, the thought of ‘Spain’ as a perpetual, arguably degenerating recreation, courting again to this opera and past appears to have been changed by a taking at face worth, if not fairly celebration, of the tackiness and vacationer vulgarity at which Bieito took goal. This Carmen now appears much less designed for the Opéra Comique, extra to be straining on the industrial West End – with out ever fairly having the ability to fill the huge area of the London Coliseum as would absolutely be needed if taking, nonetheless misguidedly, that route. That stated, the ballet of the fourth act retains a lot of its pressure and chunk.
A vicious poisonous masculinity stays, even now and again continues to shock: Don José putting Micaëla and verbally abusing her as she departs, for example, that first scene absolutely echoed on the shut when he brutally slits Carmen’s throat. But absolutely there may be extra to Carmen, certainly extra to Don José, than that. One needn’t essentially go down Dmitri Tcherniakov’s route (click on right here), decentring Carmen and remodeling the opera into Don José’s remedy session, fascinating, provocative, and rewarding although that was. A level of larger sympathy, or at the very least looking out, for all of the characters wouldn’t have gone amiss right here.
More persistently sturdy performances may need helped. One principal towered above the others, Sean Panikkar’s Don José. The vary of his efficiency, vocally and dramatically, got here near an object lesson, even inside parameters which have turn out to be unsympathetic. He acted as an energising presence for others too. Rarely, furthermore, have I heard such clear diction on this theatre’s cavernous areas. If that introduced the shortcomings of an oddly unsettled English translation extra strongly to the fore, that’s firmly the fault of that translation. (And actually, Carmen in English is finally not an excellent concept.) Ginger Costa-Jackson’s Carmen grew in stature because the night progressed, at her strongest (splendidly acted right here) when later exhibiting worry and vulnerability, unusually patchy earlier on.
A vigorous, charismatic stage portrayal from Nmon Ford’s Escamillo was not at all times matched vocally within the decrease vary, however there was no doubting the dedication of the efficiency. Carrie-Ann Williams’s late-substitution Micaëla had its moments, extra within the third act than the primary, however by no means fairly settled. There had been, reality be advised, a number of relatively combined performances, and one, the Zuniga, by which the singer appeared missing, whether or not on the evening or extra essentially, within the needed vocal gear. Fortunately, Christopher Nairne’s Moralès (one other late substitution), in addition to Ellie Laugharne and Niamh O’Sullivan as Frasquita and Mercédès respectively, provided extremely convincing, particular person performances of their smaller roles.
The ENO Orchestra, in the meantime, was on wonderful kind, providing precision, heat and sheen in near-equal (the place acceptable) measure. Conductor Kerem Hasan’s tempi had been properly chosen and communicated, with loads of drive and tenderness because the rating required. The refrain and extra refrain did good work in all that was requested of them. I simply want the components, lots of them good, had added as much as a extra satisfying theatrical expertise, as had been the case beforehand, while noting that mine appears to have been a minority view.
Mark Berry