Every opera company, large, small, private, public, urban or out of town, is preoccupied with the same dry equation: how to combine artistic ambition with financial reality. One answer will always be right. Georges Bizet’s Carmen. Box-office gold, this 1875 French masterpiece is everywhere. The Royal Opera’s new staging has an extended run. The opera will be a headline event at this year’s Edinburgh international festival. A new production by the American director Diane Paulus, conducted by Robin Ticciati, has opened Glyndebourne festival’s 90th anniversary season, with 21 performances (and a change of cast and conductor) between now and late August. With remaining seat prices from £85 to £285, you may find an £8 standing ticket, when Glyndebourne makes its annual visit to the Proms (29 August), more tempting.
Paulus presents the heroine as a woman who can shape her own destiny – not in itself a novelty, but handled here with nuance in a thoughtful, nonspecific updating: army garrison, lowlife night club, drilling rig in a bare landscape (designs by Riccardo Hernández, lighting by Malcolm Rippeth). Carmen, resonantly sung by the Tunisian-Canadian mezzo-soprano Rihab Chaieb, is far from an everywoman. She is singular: the centre of any crowd, with a magnetic, erotic hold over others. Women envy her. Men desire her. All fear her. The besotted Don José has none of the equivalent assets. He’s a mother’s boy with a dodgy past, a sweet fiance (Sofia Fomina), a flabby character and red-rage habit of violence. His long, lyrical, pleading aria to Carmen, the climax of which is a soaring top B flat (the Flower Song), is answered by her short, blunt rejection: Bizet at his most brilliant, creating the musical equivalent of a deadly chess move.
The Ukrainian tenor Dmytro Popov negotiated the tricky role of José with conviction, hardening into anger, with a voice of steely intensity. In contrast, Escamillo (the Russian bass-baritone Dmitry Cheblykov) barely has to utter a word or flex a well-honed muscle – of which, as shirtlessly displayed here, he has many – and Carmen succumbs. The London Philharmonic Orchestra, especially the woodwind and harp, brought out the colours in Bizet’s score, even if at times the pace was unduly hard-pressed, threatening (on second night, last Sunday) to wreck ensemble. With Dingle Yandell as the dragoon captain Zuniga, Elisabeth Boudreault as Frasquita and Kezia Bienek as Mercedes, and a first-class chorus, well-drilled children’s chorus and classy dancers, this was a probing and dramatically rewarding show, with an inspired ending.
A public gala to celebrate Antonio Pappano, as he nears the end of 22 years as music director at Covent Garden, was held at the Royal Opera House to praise and thank this enormously popular figure. If operatic galas are to make any sense musically, as well as suit singers who have to perform vocal acrobatics cold, the temptation to squeeze in a drop of everything has to be avoided. Pappano concentrated on arias from Italian repertoire, which can stand well alone (not so true of German or new repertoire, to which he has shown equal commitment). These were interspersed with pre-recorded videos in which every part of the company expressed gratitude to the conductor: words that were repeated were “generosity”, “humour”, “energy”, “attention to text”, “preparation”, “incomparable musicality” – as well as references to dinners, Belgian beer and belly laughs.
Those taking part were a roll call of ROH stars at various stages of their careers, among them Aigul Akhmetshina (currently the Royal Opera’s Carmen, soon to switch to Glyndebourne), Lisette Oropesa, Ermonela Jaho, Sondra Radvanovsky, Gerald Finley, Jonas Kaufmann, Freddie De Tommaso, Bryn Terfel, Huw Montague Rendall.
If anyone stole the show, aside from Pappano, it was the in-house musicians: the chorus, especially in Verdi’s Va, pensiero (better known as the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves, from Nabucco), and the orchestra throughout, notably in the ferociously played Intermezzo from Manon Lescaut. Next month, Pappano has a book out: My Life in Music (Faber). Don’t read it hoping for endless anecdotes and personal triumphs, though there are a few of those: this is a detailed account of the sheer hard graft, and of the musical, technical and psychological puzzles a conductor has to solve. If you have wondered, read it and gasp. Pappano’s last conducting date as the Royal Opera’s music director is Andrea Chénier on 11 June (live in cinemas at 6.45pm, with repeat screenings from 16 June, 2pm).
Pappano’s upbringing – he was born in Essex to Italian immigrant parents and helped his mother as an office cleaner before the school day started – explodes the myth of opera being the product of privilege. Welsh National Opera was founded in 1943, in a Methodist chapel in a Cardiff suburb, by Idloes Owen, a former miner who taught singing in his spare time. His pupils – a butcher, a publican, railway workers – joined forces with him out of a love of music. Soon the company was working with leading European directors, performing a Ring cycle and, among other achievements, leading the world in the operas of Leoš Janáček. This past season it has mounted one of the best productions of Britten’s Death in Venice most of us have ever seen. The company serves a nation, reaches local communities – in both Welsh and English – and achieves extraordinary standards of excellence.
Now its future is threatened by Arts Council of Wales and Arts Council England cuts. The Musicians’ Union has called on management to retain WNO as a full-time company and stop the proposed 15% pay cut. Last week, Equity passed an emergency motion supporting the chorus of WNO. On Tuesday, company members sang on the steps of the Senedd, part of a public protest. A Protect Welsh National Opera campaign has been set up. WNO, a powerful voice in the land of song, is irreplaceable. Support it if you can.
Star ratings (out of five)
Carmen ★★★★
Celebrating 22 Years of Antonio Pappano ★★★★
