Carmen

 

So on Tuesday we went to see the Royal Opera House filmcast of Carmen. (Above a photo of the part of the curtain call. Not the best photo ever) I wouldn't say I massively enjoyed it. To begin with it was very long. Three and a half hours. That did include an interval and a 15 minute pre-show talk; the interval was very welcome but I could, as always,  have done without the pre show chat. We have two recordings of Carmen and having checked neither of them come near three hours so I suspect there was a bit of previously excised dialogue put back in for this production. 

The production was OK although I hated what they did with Micaela, making her  dumpy clumsy and shortsighted; I can see where they were coming from but that doesn't mean I have to like it. As for the singing, the Carmen (one Ginger Costa Jones was brilliant ) and everyone else sort of paled beside her. The Escamillo was underpowered, the Don Jose was an OK singer but couldn't act  and there was no chemistry between him and Carmen. The Micaela was good but she always hesitated just before her high notes which was a bit off putting although she did always hit them. The secondary roles were taken by members of the ROH's Jette Parker program for young singers and I don't think any of them were ready for it, nor were they particularly well directed. 

When I thought about it afterwards it occurred to me that I've never seen a production of Carmen that I thought was good. There were two iffy ones by the opera company that shall not be named here, there was the filmcast of the weird  Barry Kosky one at the ROH where Carmen appeared in a gorilla suit and which we left half way through because the OH could not bear it any longer. And there was a very promising one at Opera North decades ago which was let down by the mezzo having - how can I put this? - substance issues, which meant throughout Acts 1 and 2 she leant against any convenient piece of scenery, or prop, or failing either of those, one of her colleagues, and in Acts 3 and 4 she had been replaced with a member of the stage management team walking through the part on stage while a random audience member - albeit a trained singer - sang the part from the side of the stage. That was an interesting evening. It would have been a  good one overall if not for that  .... ! 

Thank goodness for recordings, although they aren't the same as seeing things live.