Carmen
Royal Opera House, 6th & 8th March 2018
If Carmen contends that love is a rebellious bird, then Barrie Kosky is a rebellious director. He can take rarities such as Saul or The Nose and give it the full razzle-dazzle treatment, revolving organ rising through a sea of candles, tap-dancing proboscises and all. What happens when he tackles one of the staples of the repertoire? Everyone knows Carmen. Or at least, they think they do. Kosky’s staging, first seen at Oper Frankfurt last season, challenges preconceptions. It’s an all-singing, all-dancing vaudeville which makes for a flawed but entertaining show… a show that isn’t necessarily Bizet’s opera as we know it, but it’s hugely entertaining all the same.
Anna Goryachova (Carmen)
© Bill Cooper | ROH
Any hint of Spanish colour is drained from Kosky’s vision apart from garish toreador costumes for Escamillo and a handful of dancers and – briefly – Carmen herself (in shocking pink). Katrin Lea Tag’s set comprises a huge Busby Berkeley-style staircase up and down which the Chorus clods noisily but it also allows for Otto Pichler’s polished Bob Fosse-type dance routines, such as Act 2’s quick-paced, hand-jiving quintet. The staircase also enables the art of the big entrance, none more teasing than Carmen’s habanera which – in a nod to Marlene Dietrich in Blonde Venus – finds our leading lady not dressed as a sultry Spanish señorita, but in a gorilla suit, which she sheds to reveal Carmen dressed in androgynous white shirt and black tie.
Aigul Akhmetshina (Mercédès), Jean_Paul Fouchecourt (Remendado), Anna Goryachova (Carmen), Pierre Doyen (Le Dancaïre), Jacquelyn Stucker (Frasquita)
© Bill Cooper | ROH
Imagine impish violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja taking on the role of Carmen and that will give you a pretty good idea of how Anna Goryachova plays her: petite, gamine, cheeky. Her Rossinian-scale mezzo, although displaying attractive colours, is a size too small for the ROH, but I enjoyed her performance very much. It’s a tongue-in-cheek approach from her insouciant air during the introductory voiceover to the denouement when, after being stabbed by Don José, she rises from death to give the audience an impertinent shrug. Have we all been duped?
Anna Goryachova (Carmen)
© Bill Cooper | ROH
There are problems in characterisation. It’s never clear what draws Francesco Meli’s Don José to Goryachova’s Carmen. She scatters rose petals during her habanera and flings a few in his direction just because he happens to be there. There’s no crackle of electricity between them and the final showdown, in which Carmen appears in a black dress with a spectacular train trailing down the staircase, finds Meli encumbered by having to skirt a wide path around the stage to avoid stepping on it. Meli is miscast, unsuited to French repertoire, often reduced to insensitive bawling. Don José and Micaëla are more conventionally drawn in Kosky’s production, although I liked Kristina Mkhitaryan, sweet-toned and girlish, sidling up to Don José in their duet and planting a kiss on his cheek. Kostas Smoriginas’ Escamillo shares Goryachova’s sense of irony, even if he lacks firm enough low notes for this machismo role.
Gaëlle Arquez (Carmen) and Andrea Carè (Don José)
© Bill Cooper | ROH
Two nights later, the second cast was generally much stronger, led by Gaëlle Arquez as a superb Carmen. The French mezzo – flashing a broad smile – is easily the sexiest Carmen I’ve heard, her velvety mezzo, not especially large, is subtly inflected, colouring text expertly. Even in Kosky’s ironic staging, Arquez oozes charisma, magnetic in her Seguidille. Andrea Carè was a creditable José, more deeply committed than Meli, while Susanna Hurrell was a charming Micaëla. Alexey Markov’s butch Escamillo was well sung, even if his French tasted particularly Slavic.
Haegee Lee (Frasquita), Gaëlle Arquez (Carmen), Adèle Charvet (Mercédès)
© Bill Cooper | ROH
Where Kosky pares the staging to its essentials, he stuffs the pit with every note that Bizet composed, including a lot of stuff that was later rejected. So we get Moralès’ couplets in Act 1, plus both versions of the habanera: the earlier one – a jaunty chanson in 6/8 – had been rejected by Célestine Galli-Marié during rehearsals, causing Bizet to make a hasty rewrite for his leading lady which resulted in one of opera’s greatest hits. There are longer versions of the Don José–Micaëla duet and the duel scene between José and Escamillo, plus an orchestral epilogue. It makes for a long evening. But it doesn’t feel long, so entertaining is Kosky’s approach.
Given the pretty variable standard of French diction from the A cast, I didn’t mind Claude de Demo’s smoky voiceover, which draws on Prosper Mérimée’s novella, although recounting the actual stage directions provides Kosky with the cop-out from actually depicting them.
Gaëlle Arquez (Carmen)
© Bill Cooper | ROH
Jakub Hrůša drew terrific performances from the ROH orchestra, a bit slow in places although he only dragged the Flower Song out for Meli, opting for a much more flowing tempo for Carè.
I wouldn’t want to see Carmen staged this way every time – and Covent Garden has lined it up for a long double-cast revival next season – but it makes for a fresh, provocative, entertaining evening. Bring back Gaëlle Arquez and it could yet earn cult status.