When the University of Otago announced it would stage Carmen this year, I admit I grumbled. A million operas in the world, a good dozen or so of them Top of the Pops enough to bring in a big audience, even in Dunedin, and they'd gone and chosen the one I felt least like seeing. I am, after all, one of only two people I know who would, if pushed, name Djamileh their favourite Bizet opera. Carmen has never really gripped me, musically or dramatically, and its excess of overexposed hit tunes doesn't help. But between then and now I've recovered somewhat. The opera has improved in my opinion (though I still like Djamileh better), I've come to enjoy the hits again, and the prospect of seeing in on stage has grown ever more appealing. Besides which, complaining about the choice of opera in a city which sees so little is just plain ill-mannered.
So by opening night last Thursday I was, if not exactly trembling with anticipation, definitely feeling positive at the thought of what lay ahead. My complaints were more or less forgotten — and after, say, two or three bars of overture, they'd evaporated completely. What was I thinking? Who could complain about this? There's far too much to be blissfully happy about.
Believe it or not, when I went on Thursday, my ticket for that performance was the only one I had. Two or three bars of overture and it was already obvious that one was not going to be enough. You know what a vocal fanatic (and then some) I am but I didn't need a single soprano to know this was going to be a brilliant evening and one I'd want to repeat — and that's testament to the appeal of the music itself, but even more so to the way it was being played, to the exceedingly talented conductor Tecwyn Evans and the excellent playing he drew from the Southern Sinfonia. So I was hooked in even before the curtain rose — and then it did rise and everything just got even better. Just Neil Irish's set made me smile, a pretty straightforward town square but immediately atmospheric. The soldiers' chorus, Moralès, solid singing in both cases.
And then, one of those flashes of magic which remind me why I'm so in love with this art form. Micaëla, in the shape of Rebecca Ryan. Adorable even before she sang and exquisite from the moment she did. She's a revelation to me, a name which, unbelievably, I'd never heard before this Carmen and a voice which made me an instant fan. Sometimes, it's true, the thrill of a performance can make me love anyone's opening phrases, only to find myself rather less enchanted as the night progresses. Not so Rebecca — every bar she sang just delighted me further. Her "Je dis que rien ne m'épouvante" was radiant, transcending both a wayward horn solo and the seagull-sized clumps of fake snow descending from above — not to mention time itself. Wonderful how fate works out: Rebecca was originally cast as Frasquita, with Anna Leese to sing Micaëla. But Anna was released from her contract so as to début at Covent Garden (where I believe she's to sing Micaëla next year) and Rebecca was promoted — an inspired move, as Micaëla, and not Frasquita, is clearly where she should be in this opera. Even as Micaëla she doesn't really have enough to sing. I'd happily have given her the whole opera.
I'm afraid I can't afford such besotted or wholehearted praise to Deborah Wai Kapohe in the title role. I wish I could, for mostly personal reasons: though I've had an unpredictable relationship with her voice of late, it was nevertheless among the first operatic voices I experience and fell for in person, and I was convinced Carmen would prove a perfect fit for her. I was both right and wrong. Unquestionably she looks and acts the part divinely, all swaying hips and dangerous beauty. She's a seductress whose bark is worse than her bite. For all her provocative defiance in the face of men too overcome by her to pose a threat, once they take the bait her power wanes. Don José's jealous violence quickly tears down her fearless façade, and by the time she's Escamillo's soignée companion she's barely recognisable. This is a powerful performance but, alas, it's one without the vocals to match. And yet it's not quite as straightforward as all that. I can't exactly call it a poorly sung Carmen. Rather I'm going to make what will probably seem a bizarre criticism: her Carmen is too authentic. What I mean is this. For all the local flavour Bizet incorporated into his score, Carmen remains, when all is said and done, French opera. Now of course Carmen should sound convincingly Gypsy but, speaking for myself, I think she should also sound like an opera singer. Deborah makes all manner of attractive enough sounds but only some actually sound like opera. Elsewhere, the lower the tessitura goes, the greater her tendency simply to belt it out. I've heard Deborah in her other musical persona, as a folk singer-songwriter, and I struggle to hear any significant difference between her style in that genre and her approach to much of Carmen's music. Gypsy touches in the singing are all well and good but this isn't a case of varied vocal colour, it's actually a separate voice, and the break between that and her higher (and lovely!) "opera" voice is quite noticeable. Theatrically I suppose it's all still very effective, and she's almost always very listenable, but it's nevertheless a jarring musical experience for me, a PorgyandBessified Carmen when what I wanted was the real thing.
Towering over Carmen both physically and vocally is Dwayne Jones' superlative Don José. Apparently this is the new unwritten rule of opera in Dunedin: import a young, bald Australian singer with an insanely good voice. For Opera Otago's Falstaff it was Derek Welton and Carmen has Dwayne to fit the bill. No allowances for acoustics necessary here, he just soars regardless. His is the most free, open and gorgeous sound, hugely powerful but without ever blasting or shouting. Please don't think me unjust if I don't devote as much space to him as the sopranos, you know how I am. But this is an incredible talent, the kind of tenor sound that girls who like that kind of thing go quite mad for. And despite the gorgeous voice, he's quite unsettlingly good at bringing out Don José's scary, violent side too — his assault and murder of Carmen, staged starkly and graphically, is heavy going stuff, his initimidating physical presence matched by his singing.
Whereas the other man in the piece is just irresistible. José Carbo's Escamillo, with his infectious smile and suave, easy manner, is so engaging and so effortlessly charming that, despite all the adulation he so happily soaks up, he never seems arrogant — just justifiably self-confident. Nobody could help but like him; the fascination he exercises for both the men and the women is easy to understand. He sings with equal style and grace. I think he's just absolutely wonderful. And just how often have you seen me go into starry-eyed italics over a baritone? Exactly.
Though it's quite possible I have done just that in the past over Roger Wilson, who sings Le Dancaïre here. I've been a fan of Roger's for I don't know how long, but at least since December 2003 when his mellifluous voice and ability to actually pronounce French like French made him the highlight of a concert of the complete choral works of Berlioz. Both those distinguishing features are at work for him here, alongside his gift for comedy. He's aided and abetted by a hilarious Brendon Mercer as Le Remendado — honestly the two of them ought to go into business as a double act. Richard Green also makes his mark as the outrageously lecherous Zuniga. Green underwhelmed me somewhat as the Commendatore last year but here he's much more interesting.
Completing the cast are Carmen's two fellow female smugglers. Mercédès is the excellent Sarah McOnie. She doesn't exactly get much to sing, but what we did get to hear sounded very good indeed — I hope one day to have a chance to hear her in something rather more substantial. Likewise Frasquita. Perhaps I'm cursed always to long for more, more, more from the Frasquita of the piece. If Rebecca Ryan had sung it, that would certainly have been the case; and Elisa Wilson, another Australian import, is also a tantalising presence.
Annilese Miskimmon's production sets the action in the Spanish Civil War, creating an interesting juxtaposition of familiar elements with the unexpected — Carmen in grey with pillbox hat and sunglasses, the smugglers as members of the resistance. It's a smart, stylish update, one which creates a new and interesting context but without being so intrusive as to obscure or detract from the piece. Dunedin, incidentally, makes the small world even smaller — when I was in London for Fedora by the opera company of my heart, Opera Holland Park, they were also doing a Così directed by Annilese Miskimmon.
Tonight was the second performance I've seen. I'll also be there on Wednesday for the final one, when the only complain I'll have left is that it is the final one. Plain old gratitude only goes so far. It's not that which makes me so happy about this Carmen, but rather a love of opera — any opera — performed beautifully. And I'll very interested to see what the University chooses for its next production.
