Carmen
. . . is one of my favourite operas, as it is for much of the opera-going world. The problem with most operas, in fact by my reckoning probably every other opera but Carmen and The Marriage of Figaro, is the libretto. Some librettos work (or can be ignored) better than others but most of them are pretty ghastly–perhaps especially to the eye of a professional writer.* I’ve told you many times that Verdi is my favourite opera composer** but his librettists should have been bricklayers or ditch-diggers. No, probably not bricklayers: bricklaying requires an immediate, three-dimensional logic. And there is a special circle of hell for the librettist of Puccini’s Turandot.
But Carmen is a devastatingly well-told piece of musical theatre. You can not like it or not like the music but you can’t (say I) fault it for being gloriously and effectively what it is. There is, however, one huge and frequently terminal problem with staging it, which is the role of Carmen herself. The Marriage of Figaro is an ensemble piece; Carmen the opera stands or falls on Carmen the singing actress, and most of those who have tried aren’t quite up to it.*** I don’t think I’ve ever seen an entirely satisfactory production.† The one that comes nearest, which if there are any other Carmen-lovers reading this I will probably be pilloried for, was the movie version with Julia Migenes-Johnson and Placido Domingo. Well, Domingo–! He probably has done something badly in his long career, but I haven’t heard it. And Migenes-Johnson, while she got a lot of bad press at the time for silliness††, I thought had very much the right attitude: Carmen is not a subtle character, and too much artistic anguish denatures her.
I grew up with the Rise Stevens recording, but the first one that I bought for myself and that made Carmen mine was the Marilyn Horne/James McCracken/Leonard Bernstein recording. I don’t know if that was the first one to use dialogue (as Bizet wrote it) instead of recitative (as was done to it after Bizet’s death to make it a more proper opera) but it was the first one I’d heard and this jolted it into a whole new, more intense, more believable focus for me. And as the professor teaching my opera class in college pointed out, the scene between Zuniga and Carmen doesn’t work if they’re singing anyway. Zuniga has arrested her for cutting another woman with a knife, and is demanding she explain herself. She responds by singing ‘Tra la la la’. It’s thrillingly insolent. Or is to anyone who has ever been pulled over for speeding and longed to be rude††† but had something to lose, ie a driving license, and therefore applied self-restraint. Carmen is a loose cannon (and it’s all going to catch horribly up with her in about two hours) but meanwhile there’s a splendid catharsis in watching her cheeking the fuzz and getting away with hell.
It may be just as well I never saw Marilyn Horne on stage as Carmen: it would absolutely have broken my heart if she couldn’t pull it off. I think she might’ve–but I admit that the recording is very, ahem, American. I’m not the biggest fan of Bernstein, and subtlety is not his strong suit either, and even in Carmen there’s a limit to how much in-your-faceness is a good idea. His Carmen is all pretty much in primary colours, although the primary colours are really excellent–especially Horne’s amazing voice. I bought it for Horne, on whom I was already besotted. The dialogue was a revelation, and the other revelation was Don Jose. Rise Stevens’ Jose was Jan Peerce and . . . well, he got through his lines. You don’t buy the Stevens Carmen for Jan Peerce. But Don Jose in his way is as crucial as Carmen herself: you need to believe in that insanity of love. I never believed in it with Peerce; he was there because the plot needed him to be there. Just as using dialogue instead of recitative is a cliché now, so is Jose as a barely-reined-in madman; but McCracken’s Jose was the first I’d heard to bring that off. Whereupon the inevitability of the last scene of the last act becomes real tragedy rather than the sticky end of a woman who always was going to go to the bad–and of a man who conceivably might not have if he hadn’t met her.
One of the things that the performance we saw the other night got better than I’ve ever seen it done before is the relationship between Jose and Micaela. Micaela is the good girl, who has stayed home looking after Jose’s mum while Jose is off being a soldier after he killed a bloke in a bar brawl [foreshadowing alert]. She comes on a few times and sings a couple of extremely pretty arias, and is basically The Ingénue with knobs on. It tends to be a pretty thankless role. But the woman who sang it the other night (Kate Royal) not only had a gorgeous rich silky voice, with much more character than ingénue voices usually have, but as an actress she had presence. You don’t sit there thinking ‘yes, I can see why he ran off with the first wild gypsy who threw a flower at him, to get away from this awful little sap,’ you sit there thinking, ‘my god, if he’d actually married her, poor volatile weakling that he is, she might very well have kept him in line’. He might have had a life. Which gives what does happen a whole extra dimension of pity and waste.
And this Jose (Brandon Jovanovich) was excellent. He’s a big guy, for a wonder–tenors tend to be short and round and to not give the impression that you’d be worried if you met them in a dark alley: there’s a lot of disbelief-suspension necessary in opera, I’m afraid–and he carries himself well. When he was twitchy you saw the guy on the tube or in the supermarket who gave you the jumps for no good reason. And when he was threatening . . . he was threatening. And with this, yes, he had the voice–another big warm rich voice–and you believed in him, believed in the arc of the character, from the stiff young ex-priest candidate at the beginning to the fatal monomania of his despair at the end.
And then there was Carmen (Tania Kross). She was not bad, she was actually pretty good . . . but that’s been my point from the beginning: pretty good won’t do for Carmen. As a supporting character she’d shine–she might even dazzle–but as Carmen she’s a nice kids’ pony at the Grand National. This young woman has the voice and the delivery, and she’s perky and sassy and she moves well . . . but she has no thread of charisma and very little dangerous sexy slinkiness. I’ve said that subtlety is wasted on Carmen (well, I think it is) but you do need resonance. This is a big character; she dominates the other girls in the cigarette factory, she dominates the band of smugglers . . . and she dominates Don Jose. And this girl . . . looks like someone you’d like to have living next door. (You would not want Carmen living next door.) She has a friendly warm smile and a good head-toss, and I bet she has a great sense of humour. Although she badly needs some counselling on her choice of boyfriends. This was something else that I thought was brought out well in this production: Carmen has two girlfriends. I don’t know if I am simply in the mood to be thinking about the importance of friendship but I was very struck by what seemed to me to be presented as the genuine relationship among these three women. They mean it when they worry about her, when they warn her. They’re going to miss her and mourn her, and blame themselves for not doing more, even though there was nothing to be done.
I liked this staging–it was clever and attractive and mostly blissfully straightforward. There were some nice bits of stage business, like the big burly workman carrying endless crates up a flight of stairs outside the tobacco factory; and Escamillo’s girlfriend getting seriously put out at his eyeing up Carmen. Carmen is such an old war horse that directors sometimes think they have to do something new and cranky and splashy and whatever. I hate new and cranky and splashy and whatever. I want my operas–not just Carmen–gorgeous to listen to, and gorgeous to look at would be nice (bleak and barren can also be gorgeous when appropriate) but at least not painfully distracting or totally off the wall. I did think having Micaela be the person who finds Jose and Carmen at the very end was stupid and if the scene up till that moment hadn’t been so strong would have seriously unbalanced it–and it stank of ‘director having intuitive moment he misidentifies as brilliant’. I also diverged with this staging’s somewhat strained attempts to be ‘earthy’. Mostly it looked like a lot of polite middle-class people trying to act uncouth: Micaela’s first appearance, when she’s looking for Jose and is felt up by the soldiers, I found particularly stiff, unconvincing and unpleasant. This was one of the things that this Carmen got rather well–you could imagine her character being a happy little slut, the problem being the little part.
But . . . finally I’m not sure anyone can bring the role of Carmen off. There are people like that–and there are actors who can perform those characters–but not many of them have fabulous dark mezzo-soprano voices. Maybe Rise Stevens. Maybe Maria Callas. And speaking of the arc of the character, this Carmen did that well. When the mood changes between the end of the scene at Lillias Pastia’s tavern and the beginning of the scene on the mountain (which is usually the end of the second and the beginning of the third act, but not always: Carmen the opera has been roughed around kind of a lot), Carmen changed too. She lays out her cards–‘toujours la mort’–and she knows what she’s looking at. And she’s angry at Jose, angry at him for ruining her fun, for being what he is–while she’s what she is. What the two of them most deeply share is poor impulse control.
What I perhaps most admire about this production in hindsight is the last scene: the final confrontation between Carmen and Jose. Carmen at least knows what’s coming–she positively goads him to kill her–she torments him in a way that harks back to her tormenting him in the first act, teasing him to look at her, to pay attention to her, to love her. And Jose is a man on the brink; he has nothing left except Carmen, and she doesn’t want him. This Carmen and this Jose got this spot on. I knew what was going to happen, of course–and since I know the music I even knew when it was going to happen–and I was still sitting on the edge of my seat.
It was a good evening. I’m glad we went. Happy Other Anniversary to us. I hope we go again next year. But I admit I would like to see a blast-me-off-my-feet Carmen before I get too old to care.
* * *
*I may have told you this before, that Peter and I entirely revised the libretto of Don Pasquale, one night, on the walk back from the theatre. Ours worked a lot better too although without Donizetti around to help, revising the music to fit might have been tricky. And we’ve tweaked quite a few more. It amazes me really that Peter has sat through as many operas as he has, being married to me and having the old-fashioned gentleman thing of feeling that husbands are supposed to accompany their wives to evening parties. The music doesn’t do much for him so he has no defense against the awfulness of the plots. He has made a few rules over the years, usually arising from bitter experience: no Handel. No Wagner. No Britten. He would probably have been bored witless by The Coronation of Poppea–whereupon Monteverdi would have been added to the list^; the only reason I think Gluck is not on it is that I’ve never managed to take him to one. The ENO did an Orfeo ed Eurydice a few years ago–I’ve only ever seen it once, with a touring opera a long time ago–but the reviews were not friendly, and included the damning news that the chorus of the dead appear naked. The reviewers were not polite about this, and I wouldn’t be either, and Gluck’s Orfeo is also on my top ten. So we didn’t go. Sniff.
^ Although as I think about it he survived Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo not that many years ago. That’s the one where after our hero loses Eurydice a second time the sky opens and his dad says, oh, never mind the mortal frail, come on up here and hang out with us immortals. You can write a song about her if it makes you feel better.
** Much as I adore Mozart, the stories the librettos tell for both Cosi and Zauberflote make me seriously nuts and nearly ruin the music for me. I cope by being as unfamiliar with the librettos as possible, and listening fixedly to the music.
*** There’s a similar problem with Verdi’s Otello. Having lambasted Verdi’s librettists, Boito is by far the best of the bunch, and Otello works pretty well–allowing for the unconvincing enigma that Iago always is.^ I think Iago works better in the opera, in the first place because I would^^ and in the second place because you do have the music, and can therefore get away with a he’s-like-that-because-the-plot-says-he-is character more easily. This makes Iago, mysteriously, easier to play–from this audience member’s viewpoint anyway–if you have the singing voice, you can do it. Otello, however, has to possess real authority–real presence–and the whole walking Coke machine with ad lib arm waving does not work.
^ Remember I am not a Shakespeare fan.
^^ Although I pretty much loathe Falstaff, for the same plot revoltingness reasons that I don’t get along with Cosi fan tutte and Die Zauberflote
† I would kill^ to have seen Rise Stevens in her heyday. If anyone ever hears of a film recording please tell me. (Yes, I already have the audio. Of course.)
^ Well . . . a few slugs, a mosquito or two . . .
†† Yes, honing your knife on the inside of your thigh isn’t going to sharpen the blade much but, you know, metaphor . . .
††† As I did when I was pulled over by a Maine state cop for going 67 in a 65 mph zone.
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Please join the discussion at Robin McKinley's Web Forum.
Robin–
I tried posting all the websites I had gathered [about beehive cake recipes etc]
a few days ago, but they don’t seem to have gone through.
I’ll try again here.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/40-a-day/beehive-cake-recipe/index.html
http://www.cakes-you-can-bake.com/
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Country-Poppy-Seed-Cake/MoreRecipesLikeThis.aspx
http://thimbleanna.com/?p=225
http://sg.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080427113144AAgOTQZ
http://smittenkitchen.com/2008/03/caramel-walnut-upside-down-banana-cake/
http://www.easy-birthday-cakes.com/bee-hive-cake.html
http://www.cadbury.co.uk/EN/CTB2003/kitchen_lifestyle/recipes/chocolate_cakes/beehive_cake.htm
http://moderndomestic.wordpress.com/2008/07/26/the-secret-life-of-beehive-cakes/
http://jas.familyfun.go.com/recipefinder/display?id=50524
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/cda/recipe_print/0,1946,FOOD_9936_18533_PRINT-RECIPE-4X6-CARD,00.html
http://lick-the-spoon.blogspot.com/2005/09/general-custard_112698443287569405.html
http://www.hungrybrowser.com/phaedrus/m011403.htm
http://www.recipezaar.com/112213
http://www.kcra.com/foodarchive/9711673/detail.html
http://www.easy-dessertrecipes.com/html/chocolate_beehive_cake_recipe.html
http://zuula.com/SearchResult.jsp?st=beehive+cake+recipe&numres=10&ec=0&yaps=0&msps=0&ggps=0&exps=0&axps=0&maps=0&wips=0&vips=0&mjps=0&bst=1&sson=on&opnn=off&gops=20
http://thebeehive.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/01/i-cant-say-coco.html
http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,166,158184-232205,00.html
http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1810,146171-248192,00.html
http://www.cheftalk.com/content/display.cfm?bookid=147&type=book
http://www.eastsussex.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/7B2CDE76-8BAF-4F60-8F7C-45D1626629D5/0/HomeFrontrecipes79.pdf
http://www.thedailygreen.com/healthy-eating/blogs/gluten-free/orange-almond-cake
http://www.pastryscoop.com/psCourses/courses_blog_4.php
http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Course-Desserts-Cakes-Theme-Decorated
http://www.ldsradio.com/family/recipes/recipelist.aspx
http://www.tastingmenu.com/2007/05/13/bee-cake-for-mothers-day/
http://www.bigoven.com/36374-Beehive-Pumpkin-Bread-recipe.html
(I had more, and had written something in the same post, but I have no idea WHAT. So, oh well. Doesn’t really matter.)
If this doesn’t go through again, I’ll try email.
–Julia
Film of Rise Stevens in Carmen, you mean?
… http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0330121/
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0828715/
either of those links work?
And if they are what you want, tell me and I will try to locate it.
Hooray (in advance)
–Julia
OOH!
LOOK!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7JHOC6r54U
–Julia
Hot damn! Thank you! And here I wasted all this time looking for DVDs on classical music sites!
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There are MORE!
All the link things on the side of the video.
YAAAY!
:)
–Julia
Yaay indeed. I’ve just copied and pasted your previous and will go through them tomorrow when I should be WORKING. :) When PEGASUS is an afternoon late, ***we’ll know who to blame.*** :)
AND:
http://www.amazon.com/Rise-Stevens-Opera-Song/dp/B000EGDBNI/ref=pd_sim_m_1
http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/history/sounds/
http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/history/sounds/
http://www.metafilter.com/49025/Rise-Stevens
http://www.cantabile-subito.de/Mezzo-Sopranos/Stevens__Rise/hauptteil_stevens__rise.html
http://www.crotchet.co.uk/GL100636.html
http://www.belcantosociety.org/store/product_info.php?products_id=1241
http://users.california.com/~parvin/arias.html
:)
–Julia
http://www.subito-cantabile.com/
http://www.instantencore.com/video/details.aspx?Source=youtube&SourceId=h7JHOC6r54U
http://cgi.ebay.com/OPERA-NEWS-1947-february-17-RISE-STEVENS-as-CARMEN-%3E_W0QQitemZ300232646550QQcmdZViewItem?IMSfp=TL0806111655r18510
http://www.baskervillepublishers.com/store/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=STORE&Product_Code=1-880909-75-8
http://www.crotchet.co.uk/GL100636.html
You are a FRUIT LOOP. But THANK YOU VERY MUCH, as one fruit loop to another . . . :)
Yes! Thank you!
Aagh? What? –I can’t see what came before from ‘site admin’ back here, and when I look at ‘view all’ I can’t always find it.
You might also try the Metropolitan’s Opera Shop, online sales of CDs and DVDs; it’s down now for site revision but will reopen in the fall.
Oooh.
:)
Very welcome.
Yours always,
Julia The Fruit Loop.
heehee.
I told you– when I found those bell foundry pictures for you– if you need me to look for ANYTHING, just ask. And I will try. Hooray.
:)
–Julia
Yes, you did, and I have to be careful not to ABUSE you. –Actually, I mean that.
Thank you! :)
The thanks was to Julia for the Youtube link.
It sounds as if overall Carmen was good, and I’m sorry that it wasn’t majorly outstanding.
Truly gobsmackingly good performances of anything do seem to be sufficiently rare, and becoming vanishingly rare with age, I find. I hope it’s not cynicism, but rather that I am less easily impressed, having seen and done more and having more comparisons to, well, compare!
I’m excited to see it’s your favorite. Denyce Graves is performing in it and my boyfriend got me an opera gift card last year, so I’m going to fight to get a ticket. If I can get two, he can come along. The tickets go on sale next week, so I’m crossing my fingers…
ONE of my favourites. It’s on the top ten. I’m not sure what THE favourite is. If I were forced to choose it’s probably La Trav, which is embarrassing for all kinds of reasons. It has a terrible libretto, the espoused morals are grotesque, and the hero is a brat. :) I love it.
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Well, you don’t have to have reasons for loving things. I love Turandot; many of the same comments apply; there it is.
Golly. Do you really. I don’t think I’ll ever see it again; cannot bear the princess who gets to murder a lot of blokes, tries to go back on her word when it looks like she’s going to be forced to stop murdering them, tortures a woman to death to get herself out of this spot, is then CONVERTED to the idea of marrying a bloke by one kiss, and all ends in general rejoicing. The dead guys are still dead. This is the same plot problem I have with King Henry, which is the Steeleye Span song (well, it’s an *ancient* folk song/tale) that Vikkik was twitting me about recently, it shows up in the beginning of SUNSHINE: after the loathly lady turns kind and beautiful, the horses, hawks, hounds and huntsmen she ate in her beast form are still dead. I can’t suspend my disbelief that far.
B(oston) L(yric) O(pera’s) first concert in the Park was Carmen. I’d been a long time selective-opera-fan, and I went with my sister, The Musician.
The really amazing thing (since we were, like, 800 miles from the stage,? Yes. how many people were there.
“Remember I am not a Shakespeare fan.”
Is there an earlier blog entry about this? If not, I wonder if you would say more about it. I’m a bit curious as to why one of my favorite writers isn’t a fan of one of my other favorites. No criticism, just interest.
I talked about it on the old blog some. He goes on and on and on and ON AND ON AND ON AND ON AND ON AND . . . and I personally don’t find him nearly as clever as he obviously thinks he is. The fact that I’m a minority of one doesn’t bother me in the slightest. :)
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He goes on and on and on and ON AND ON AND ON AND ON AND ON AND . . .
God. I just got back from an awful performance of Shakespeare al fresco, and ….YES. It just wouldn’t end. We bailed at the intermission. I do love the sonnets–because they’re LIMITED to 14 LINES!
LOL! (I don’t even love the sonnets, but there are some good lines . . . :))
And it was Merchant of Venice, too–hooray! Anti-Semitism in the Park! Even as just an ersatz Jew, that play makes me squirm from start to finish. (And as we’ve already pointed out, the finish is far too long in coming.) And first person to claim Shylock is meant to be a tragic and sympathetic figure gets one straight in the kisser–NO, he’s NOT. Lord, I’d forgotten how much I hate that play.
But there are a few of his sonnets that make me go all gooshy. :) I do like how he puts words together, I just think that sometimes there are too many of them in a row…
I do like how he puts words together, I just think that sometimes there are too many of them in a row…
********* That would be me then. :)
Happy Other Anniversary!
Sounds like a good performance, overall. Glad to hear.
And you know, I love this. I’m not an opera person. My biggest exposure was in fifth grade when a piece of Carmon (and Turandot, oddly enough since you mention that…) was in a music thing. But I love how you made the opera come alive for someone who *isn’t* an opera person. It sounds lovely.
Oh, good. Thank you! I know a lot of people just turn off at even the IDEA of opera. But I’d like not *only* to be preaching to the converted. :)
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Had we already talked about U-Carmen eKhayelitsha, back on your old blog? South African film adaptation of Bizet, translated into Xhosa?
I am not an opera fan at all, had never seen any performance of Carmen before, but this movie blew me away, and I think it was partly due to the woman playing Carmen… She struck me as fairly amazing, both vocally and in her sheer screen presence. But again, I’m not really comparing her to anything, she’s the only Carmen I know. (In fact, I’m clueless enough that I stepped out of the film at precisely the wrong moment; got back and asked my friend, “Did I miss anything?” “Yeah. He killed her.” “What??? Goddammit!!!”)
Anyway, here’s the trailer to it if anyone is at all interested. It’s a pretty goofy trailer, but you do get to hear her sing and see her smoulder a bit. :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFEgd08b7SY
Yes. Gosh. Yes, I want to see this. Must investigate. On DVD, maybe?
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Should be. It won quite a bit of international acclaim when it came out in 2005.
OK, here it is on amazon.co.uk: http://www.amazon.co.uk/U-Carmen-Pauline-Malefane/dp/B000R5NZ46/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1217732141&sr=8-3
Proof that it exists in an all-region DVD format, so you should be able to find it either to rent or own. I’ll be interested to hear what you think, from an opera-lover’s perspective.
Hmm, I put a comment here that’s not been unscreened–just in case it’s lost in the ether, the jist was yes, it’s out on DVD, I found it on Amazon.uk and it’s an all-region DVD so you should be able to put your hands on a watchable copy. :) Let me know what you think!
This may be one of the ones that WordPress ate. I don’t remember it.
****The problem with most operas, in fact by my reckoning probably every other opera but Carmen and The Marriage of Figaro, is the libretto.****
I’d add Rosenkavalier to that list.
****I grew up with the Rise Stevens recording****
Yes, me too, so she was the standard against which others were judged. (And my mother, who would have heard her in broadcasts throughout her heyday, said she was something special.) I bought a recording with Tatiana Troyanos and Placido that was pretty good, but I was very disappointed in a later one with Jessye Norman. She had the notes, of course, but not the characterization. I am not a Callas fan and if she recorded the whole opera, I’ve never heard it, but when MN Opera did Carmen some years ago they put her Habanera on their season preview CD. It absolutely dripped sex and self-confidence, so she probably could have carried the role.
****I did think having Micaela be the person who finds Jose and Carmen at the very end was stupid****
Directors, directors . . . why would he think Micaela would even be there? Who can guess? In the production I saw here, there was a different stupidity– Carmen came out in the last act wearing white, suggesting at least visually that she was going to go legal with Escamillo. Any director who can get that out of the plot is REALLY using his imagination.
There may not be anyone around right now who can fully flesh out (so to speak) Carmen; offhand I can’t think of any names. Somenoe to watch for, anyway. This all makes me very antsy for the new season. We open here in late September with Trovatore; I’ll be thinking of you in the midst of all those Verdian warhorses.
NOT Rosencavalier. [restrains self from chomping up nice blog poster who has a right to her opinion] That whole disgusting business of the elderly–35 year old?–Marchellin (spelling??) **handing over** her young lover to the, what, 14 year old? 16 year old?, Sophie? No, that’s another opera, I’m afraid, that I try NOT to know/remember too much about the plot. That final trio, as the handing-over gets official, is some of the most divine music ever written . . . but GOLLY can I NOT take the sentiments.
Carmen in WHITE? ***Spare me.***
I would like to hear about the Trovatore. I’ve been thinking about the Verdi warhorses, and I’m not sure but what Trovatore attracts some of the worst directorial offenses. Something about the **extreme** absurdity of the plot, even in a genre of absurd plots??
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****That whole disgusting business of the elderly–35 year old?–Marchellin (spelling??) **handing over** her young lover . . .****
Well, I’m not sure she hands him over, I think he makes the move himself; he and Sophie are both of marriageable age. I don’t think you have to like the plot to consider it a good libretto. And my goodness yes, Strauss could write for women’s voices.
****I’m not sure but what Trovatore attracts some of the worst directorial offenses****
Well, it will be interesting to see what happens on stage, that’s for sure. I will let you know how it goes.
It always comes down to what works for you, of course. Don Jose throwing his life away for a thrown flower is a bit of a stretch. I don’t like the restaurant scene in ROSEN; it doesn’t work for me. And I’m not the only person to have the ‘handing over’ reaction so I think there’s some support for it. I still adore the music, and unlike, say, COSI, I am happy to go see a good production.
My parents have a recording of Carmen with Maria Callas in the title role, and she is BRILLIANT. Completely overshadows whoever it is in her Don Jose role, though.
One I saw a few years ago was the Australian Opera’s production set in the 1930s fascist Spain with Suzanne Johnston singing- she was a very scary Carmen. Superb, but you wouldn’t want her in the same train carriage let alone next door.
I must get to the opera again someday… maybe now that the baby is nearly a year old and can do without me for 4 hours at a time?
Go for it!
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Whenever I’m very, very, VERY clenchingly infuriated or put out, I walk away whistling the Toreador song. I’ve been whistling classical for years and can do so with considerable proficiency – and of course, the Toreador song can be so winsomely cutting, so swaggeringly above-it-all. It’s not one of my finer habits but definitely one of my more colorful.
I’ve started humming select bits of Beethoven’s 5th and 6th symphonies for similar reasons. :) Besides, humming is slightly less threatening than singing. . . .
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Thanks for the review!
“wonder–tenors tend to be short and round and to not give the impression that you’d be worried if you met them in a dark alley”
LOL I once had a student who was an assistant costume designer for various opera houses. She was working on a European production of Otello in Japan and needed to touch up on her English before leaving.
The lead, Otello, was played by a man so fat that he had to wear a corset while on stage to make him look presentable. It was a modern production which turned the whole opera into a boxing ring match. So, the fat man in the corset also had to box. The person who decided this forgot to do their homework: In Japan boxing _not_ a sport that anyone likes. (serves them right for thinking up such a horrible staging idea.)
When my student told me of the mistake she was almost in tears, but was laughing the next minute when I offered her a perfect solution: trade the boxing ring for a sumo wrestling ring. Perfect, the tenor can go without a corset and the costume’s easy. :)
Rebecca WinkleBeam
Yes–*horrible* staging idea–the sort of thing that makes me rant and rave. And another hopeless Otello! Arrrgh! I hope the director/producer/whoever is now a shelf stacker at WalMart.
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***Some librettos work (or can be ignored) better than others but most of them are pretty ghastly
Yes. I remember the first time my brother attended a concert I was playing in (lowly 2nd bassoon) and one of the items was Mozart’s Alleluia. His comment was, nice lyrics.
Being the uptight arrogant teenage wannabe-real-musician I was then, I was *horrified*
Now I’m safely human again, I can laugh at me. About time :-)
Bizet doesn’t do much for me, but there’s no accounting for bad taste. Give me choir music any day :-D
Story which has nothing to do with opera (which I do appreciate–sadly I’m the only member of my immediate family who does), but which I thought you might enjoy.
I have a friend who awhile back was going through some boy troubles. One night she was talking to her mother about said troubles while her mother was extremely tired and quite out of it. My friend said, “Mom, what are we going to do about these guys?” Her mother promptly replied, “Well, first you take some arnica.”
LOL! I hope she did! And if it worked, I’ll add a note to ARnica’s clinical uses!
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I saw Carmen at the Met in New York a few years back with Hei-Kyung Hong as Michaela, and was amazed at how attractive she managed to make goodness and uprightness. I admit I’m personally something of a sucker for goodness and uprightness as it is, but I wasn’t expecting that Michaela could come across as such a real alternative to Carmen. And while I can’t remember if it was clear whether Jose viewed her that way initially or not, he clearly respected her as something out of a better class of life, pulling out her chair for her and generally acting more conventionally civilized in her presence.
The third-act staging also drew an interesting parallel between Michaela and Carmen’s ideas of the shape of the world, with Carmen’s confrontation with the cards and Michaela’s appeal to God taking place on the same piece of stage, and each ending with the character bowed over in an identical gesture. They share, in a way, an equal conviction about what governs their fate – and their personal fates do unfold in accordance with the expectations of their belief systems, as if they literally do inhabit separate worlds.
Don Jose was played by Neil Shicoff, whose acting was amazing; I don’t remember much about Carmen, which says something, though I don’t remember anything particularly negative about her either. I was, however, deeply miffed to discover that they had gone with the non-dialog libretto.
I, too, can’t fathom why you would have Michaela discover Jose and Carmen at the end — even if she had somehow decided to show up at a bullfight in Seville, she seems like the least likely character to be at all surprised. Was she at least there in the company of a good, upright Navarrese husband, or was she still trying to rescue Jose from himself?
deeply miffed to discover that they had gone with the non-dialog libretto.
********* Good heavens. At the *Met*? I didn’t think anyone was doing the recitative any more–it’s not what Bizet wrote!
I, too, can’t fathom why you would have Michaela discover Jose and Carmen at the end — even if she had somehow decided to show up at a bullfight in Seville, she seems like the least likely character to be at all surprised. Was she at least there in the company of a good, upright Navarrese husband, or was she still trying to rescue Jose from himself?
********** Nope. Just her wandering on stage alone. Made NO sense.
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