December 9, 2007
Carmen, Friday 7th December 2007
You can’t help enjoying Carmen because of the wonderful, exhilarating music, with its dazzling energy, blood-stirring rhythms, and gloriously hummable melodies. It really makes you want to leap out of your seat and dance in the isles that curious Spanish dance where everyone appears to be sniffing their own armpits.
This Carmen has pleasingly lavish production values, with scrumptious costumes, proper choreographed dances, and even special guest appearances by a sweet little donkey and a stunningly beautiful black, shiny, trained stallion. This will clue you into the ethos of Ellen Kent Productions – that redoubtable lady’s avowed mission is to “bring opera to everyone”. Everyone likes Carmen, everyone likes animals, and everyone likes a good show. So that’s what we’ve got: a barn-storming, foot-tapping romp, spectacular to look at and (mostly) delightful to listen to.
The female singers of the Chisinau National Opera, who form the bulk of this company, are almost without exception exquisitely beautiful – notably ravishing were Irina Vinogradova as the sweet goody two-shoes Micaela, blonde goddess Maria Tsonina and raven-haired beauty Galina Bernaz as Carmen’s two friends Frasquita and Mercedes – and they are also excellent singers, Tsonina providing the angelic top-notes that mezzo-sopranos can’t reach. A non-Moldovan leading lady has been imported into the company for this season in the shape of Heather Shipp, who was last night’s Carmen (tonight’s will be Zarui Vardanean). She was a lusty, salty, sexy Carmen from her first appearance in her slightly off-white working undies, and she immediately took command of the stage with the fiery and dangerous charisma of a really Bad Woman, her predatory instincts settling unerringly on the hapless Don Jose, and making it entirely credible that he would abandon his girl, his duty, his comrades, his whole life essentially, to go scampering about the hills with Carmen and her bunch of bad-guys. Her attitude was perfect and her voice possessed honeyed warmth and sweetness, but was a little short on power, which meant that she was sometimes swamped by the orchestra.
Last night’s Don Jose was Irakli Grigali, and he was outstanding, completely convincing as the bewitched, bamboozled and betrayed soldier. Physically he was perfect for the part, a thick-set, very dark, almost Basque appearance, a straightforward peasant morality – I thought he was better than Placido Domingo, because he retained a kind of stoic dignity and sympathy instead of being pathetic and fawning. His passion for Carmen fought a titanic struggle with his better nature, and eventually won; this was a splendid piece of acting, and his voice expressively conveyed tenderness, anguish and baffled rage. These performances lifted the production above the commonplace and made it powerful, raw, moving. Not everyone in the company achieved this level of realism – notably the cigarette factory girls, whose brawl in the first act was pitifully half-hearted and well-bred – the girls I was at convent school with would have made a better job of pulling hair and scratching faces.
The fascinatingly unreliable sound system at the New Theatre behaved itself well for most of the night, creating only one strange booming noise which fortunately did not occur at a crucial point. Worth risking the ticket price.
You can’t help enjoying Carmen because of the wonderful, exhilarating music, with its dazzling energy, blood-stirring rhythms, and gloriously hummable melodies. It really makes you want to leap out of your seat and dance in the isles that curious Spanish dance where everyone appears to be sniffing their own armpits.
This Carmen has pleasingly lavish production values, with scrumptious costumes, proper choreographed dances, and even special guest appearances by a sweet little donkey and a stunningly beautiful black, shiny, trained stallion. This will clue you into the ethos of Ellen Kent Productions – that redoubtable lady’s avowed mission is to “bring opera to everyone”. Everyone likes Carmen, everyone likes animals, and everyone likes a good show. So that’s what we’ve got: a barn-storming, foot-tapping romp, spectacular to look at and (mostly) delightful to listen to.
The female singers of the Chisinau National Opera, who form the bulk of this company, are almost without exception exquisitely beautiful – notably ravishing were Irina Vinogradova as the sweet goody two-shoes Micaela, blonde goddess Maria Tsonina and raven-haired beauty Galina Bernaz as Carmen’s two friends Frasquita and Mercedes – and they are also excellent singers, Tsonina providing the angelic top-notes that mezzo-sopranos can’t reach. A non-Moldovan leading lady has been imported into the company for this season in the shape of Heather Shipp, who was last night’s Carmen (tonight’s will be Zarui Vardanean). She was a lusty, salty, sexy Carmen from her first appearance in her slightly off-white working undies, and she immediately took command of the stage with the fiery and dangerous charisma of a really Bad Woman, her predatory instincts settling unerringly on the hapless Don Jose, and making it entirely credible that he would abandon his girl, his duty, his comrades, his whole life essentially, to go scampering about the hills with Carmen and her bunch of bad-guys. Her attitude was perfect and her voice possessed honeyed warmth and sweetness, but was a little short on power, which meant that she was sometimes swamped by the orchestra.
Last night’s Don Jose was Irakli Grigali, and he was outstanding, completely convincing as the bewitched, bamboozled and betrayed soldier. Physically he was perfect for the part, a thick-set, very dark, almost Basque appearance, a straightforward peasant morality – I thought he was better than Placido Domingo, because he retained a kind of stoic dignity and sympathy instead of being pathetic and fawning. His passion for Carmen fought a titanic struggle with his better nature, and eventually won; this was a splendid piece of acting, and his voice expressively conveyed tenderness, anguish and baffled rage. These performances lifted the production above the commonplace and made it powerful, raw, moving. Not everyone in the company achieved this level of realism – notably the cigarette factory girls, whose brawl in the first act was pitifully half-hearted and well-bred – the girls I was at convent school with would have made a better job of pulling hair and scratching faces.
The fascinatingly unreliable sound system at the New Theatre behaved itself well for most of the night, creating only one strange booming noise which fortunately did not occur at a crucial point. Worth risking the ticket price.