The Prélude opened so fast that an audible murmur arose from the audience, who were caught out talking, not to mention the players who took a few bars to get up to pace. A heady, fast-paced Carmen wouldn’t be a bad thing, but it wasn’t convincing: it was simply too fast. I thought conductor Daniel Oren was presumably quite impatient to get it over and done with, since the start time had been brought forward from 1930 to 1900, but I later realised this was to fit in several parts of the score, which he had decided to butcher by playing as slowly as possible, especially where this was likely to cause a total loss of momentum and atmosphere.
The children overacted to the point of drawing attention to themselves, and they sang so badly in French that I thought it was a joke. Some of the cast spoke it hardly any better, but at least they could sing. In fairness to the children, their part is not that easy, but you would think the chorus master could have had the big idea of hiring an accent coach.
One of Carmen’s big numbers, in the tavern, started off so slowly I thought I might have mistaken it for another number entirely, but no, the wild, bawdy song began at a sluggish pace. It took a four man lift to get her onto the table and make her fall out of synch with the orchestra. Perhaps she was fighting against them to get some speed into the song. It did end at a trot, so perhaps Mr Oren was able to make a concession on this occasion. (Incidentally, I think my partner and I stopped bothering to applaud at this point).
Nancy Fabiola Herrera’s idea of a seductive pose was somewhat lacking in seduction; a kind of bizarre squat which was more bewildering than anything. But at least she had a lot of energy and brazenness, which can never be too far amiss in a Carmen.
The rest of the opera was building up some pace, but it was all too much in the great final act chorus where the entire company welcomes their toréador hero.
Oren brought out the carving knife for the final scene (leave that to Don Jose); he killed all the momentum and passion off by slowing down the score almost to a stop when it should have marched indomitably onwards. Don Jose's final 'Carmen, my beloved Carmen' quietened down to a whisper and failed to grow to anything more than a mezzo forte moan, rather than a fortissimo deranged cry of passion (he has, after all, just killed the woman). The more you diminuendo in that passage, the more crescendo you need to make up for it! I'm not surprised he couldn't sing the phrase loudly enough, though, since the pace had been slowed to gravissimo. In any case, Marcelo Alvarez overacted this scene so that his voice cracked.
Ruined. Why bother to stay for the final chords? As Anthony Holden from The Guardian mentioned in his review, they were drowned out by the applause of the audience anyway because the curtain comes down too early.
The audience were especially bad. One woman’s phone went off four times: LEARN TO TURN IT OFF. Where were the ushers? She even had the barefaced cheek to come back after the interval. A group behind me were talking now and then – of course, everyone thinks it is acceptable to talk at the Opera these days, like it once was in the past. But even worse, one of them was wearing noisy man-made fibres and fidgeted like he had an ants’ nest under his seat. Coughing was in general contained – one woman even waited for moments of applause to cough and blow her nose, instead of adopting the usual strategy of carefully waiting for a quiet moment (who cares about those?) to explode into the silence. A few members of the audience, however, apparently had the plague and coughed loudly and often: remember it only takes one to spoil it for everyone.
Conclusions:
Daniel Oren – I probably won’t go to anything he conducts in the future.
Herrera – I would like to hear her in other mezzo soprano roles, but maybe not see her in seductive ones.
Alvarez – Don’t overact: sing properly. I hear he may have had a cold, like most of the audience.
The flute playing was patchy throughout, even in the famous Intermezzo.
Production: *** (I’m feeling generous).
Audience: ** Poor form.
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