An upsurge in productions of Carmen usually means that opera companies are worried about revenue. Are last week’s revivals at Glyndebourne and at the London Coliseum a good sign or a bad?
We can see for ourselves when the ENO version is streamed live to cinemas around Britain on July 1 - we plan to see it in Castle Douglas, when we happen to be in the vicinity.
This morning the two productions prompted the Daily Telegraph to nominate its ten greatest exponents of the role, which rightly included the wonderful Conchita Supervia and, in 1977, Teresa Berganza in the famous Edinburgh Festival production.
In comparison with so many of her rivals, Berganza’s was a subdued but memorably precise Carmen - “mysterious and introspective” was how the Telegraph aptly described her in that great performance conducted in the intimacy of the King’s Theatre by Claudio Abbado with Placido Domingo as Don Jose and Mirella Freni as Micaela.
That was certainly not a Carmen produced on a shoestring, and was probably the most expensive event Edinburgh (with Peter Diamand as director) ever staged, but in quality it was worth every penny and has stuck strongly in the memory. I feel glad it was here that it happened.
Among recent productions, the most fascinating in my view was the one at the Opera Comique in Paris, conducted by John Eliot Gardiner with Anna Caterina Antonacci in the title role - not at all flashy but attentive, like the production as a whole, to the spoken dialogue (which Bieito’s Coliseum version largely omits) and to scrupulous characterisation even if the Micaela was a a little too fluttey and the Escamillo lacking in incisiveness.
But Carmen is a far from easy piece. You can buy this performance on DVD and, for its atmosphere, it is well worth acquiring, certainly more so than Herbert von Karajan’s staid performance at the Salzburg Festival. But what a pity Berganza’s portrayal was never filmed on DVD.
25 May 2015
We can see for ourselves when the ENO version is streamed live to cinemas around Britain on July 1 - we plan to see it in Castle Douglas, when we happen to be in the vicinity.
This morning the two productions prompted the Daily Telegraph to nominate its ten greatest exponents of the role, which rightly included the wonderful Conchita Supervia and, in 1977, Teresa Berganza in the famous Edinburgh Festival production.
In comparison with so many of her rivals, Berganza’s was a subdued but memorably precise Carmen - “mysterious and introspective” was how the Telegraph aptly described her in that great performance conducted in the intimacy of the King’s Theatre by Claudio Abbado with Placido Domingo as Don Jose and Mirella Freni as Micaela.
That was certainly not a Carmen produced on a shoestring, and was probably the most expensive event Edinburgh (with Peter Diamand as director) ever staged, but in quality it was worth every penny and has stuck strongly in the memory. I feel glad it was here that it happened.
Among recent productions, the most fascinating in my view was the one at the Opera Comique in Paris, conducted by John Eliot Gardiner with Anna Caterina Antonacci in the title role - not at all flashy but attentive, like the production as a whole, to the spoken dialogue (which Bieito’s Coliseum version largely omits) and to scrupulous characterisation even if the Micaela was a a little too fluttey and the Escamillo lacking in incisiveness.
But Carmen is a far from easy piece. You can buy this performance on DVD and, for its atmosphere, it is well worth acquiring, certainly more so than Herbert von Karajan’s staid performance at the Salzburg Festival. But what a pity Berganza’s portrayal was never filmed on DVD.
25 May 2015
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