Carmen offers perfect opera entry point
Steamy tale of seduction and death is sure to hook first-timers, and bring the longtime fans back
Vancouver Opera presents Bizet's Carmen
When: Opens Saturday, runs to May 5
Where: Queen Elizabeth Theatre, 630 Hamilton St., Vancouver
It's just like the good old days: Vancouver Opera offers five, count 'em, five performances of George Bizet's 1875 blockbuster Carmen, a potent indication that they think it will draw the opera neophyte and the cognoscenti alike.
Why should VO think this is what Vancouver audiences need? Well, there's scarcely an opera fan out there who doesn't love the piece. But a compelling agreement can be made that Carmen is a spectacular gateway drug for newbies wanting to see what opera's all about.
Here are five short reasons why Carmen makes such a great “first opera:”
THE STORY
Based on a steamy 1845 tale of seduction and death by Prosper Mérimée, Carmen is full of action. Plus it showcases characters not previously celebrated in the opera house: no kings and queens, no gods and goddesses.
The serialized novella was considered a real shocker back in its day, and, given the right production, the musical adaptation can still make a powerful impact.
THE ROLES
We get Michaela, the good girl, Don José, the handsome military officer — perhaps the hardest role to make work dramatically — and Escamillo, a toreador, all swagger and bravado.
As for Carmen, well, she's the archetypal bad girl we all adore. Capricious and contradictory, Carmen is definitely her own woman, and we are all helplessly in her thrall from the second she appears on stage.
THE VOCAL WRITING
Bizet upends the opera stereotypes. Sopranos usually get drama and vocal showcases. Soprano Michalea gets a couple of really great numbers — perfect vehicles for a certain type of operatic ingenue — but she's definitely a second banana. Next in the conventional pecking order come tenors, and Don José, Carmen's swain, is one. But tenors are usually heroes and/ or romantic leads; Don José is a conflicted mess.
Toreador Escamillo is a bass baritone, a voice type usually used for erstwhile companions, old guys and villains. Escamillo struts and swaggers like a tenor, but he's too much a bystander to be blamed for the violence that unfolds.
CARMEN
Carmen is a mezzo soprano, for heaven's sake — a voice type usually confined to mothers, best friends and maids.
But not here: Carmen's the star, and the lower, smokier range of a mezzo soprano is a genius choice for a woman no longer in first youth, who's been around yet knows exactly who she is.
VO has double cast the role, with Sara Mesko singing three performances and Ginger Costa-Jackson featured in two .
POTENTIAL FOR REIMAGINING
Carmen is set in a 19th-century Spain replete with factory workers, Gypsies, smugglers, military personnel and so on.
But in this piece those types can morph according to any good directional concept.
This doesn't always work: the Metropolitan Opera's latest Carmen, set in some loosely defined American West, is apparently a stinker.
But what Canadian director Joel Ivany did with the piece in VO's 2014 production was magical, sort of traditional, but sort of not.
You'll have to go and see what director Rachel Peake makes of it.
THE MUSIC
Bizet worked hard and died young, thinking lasting fame had eluded him. It's just one of those terribly sad historical facts. But in Carmen he gave us unforgettable tunes, almost all put into equally unforgettable contexts. Even if you've never been in an opera house — or Vancouver's facsimile, the Queen Elizabeth Theatre — tunes everyone knows pop up in each act with gratifying frequency.
All well and good, but even better is the way Bizet paces the evening, from a taut overture to a violent, inexorable conclusion. This is music and drama beautifully married.
One slightly cautionary note: Paris audiences expected their money's worth. Carmen runs to four substantial acts, though these days we have a single intermission between acts two and three. And spoken dialogue — as Bizet intended in his original version — helps keep the plot chugging along.
But neophytes beware. Opera is seriously addictive. Carmen especially.