A Carmen for Today

Gratuitously vicious and violent, Calixto Bieto’s English National Opera  production of Carmen, streamed earlier this month from the London Coliseum to cinemas everywhere, was in some respects less lethal than expected. Though his devotion for opera as sensationalism was emphatically still present, it was not wholly at odds with the Merimee story on which Bizet based his final opera.

The feebleness with which it has been so often characterised - it was the first opera I saw as a boy and I thought it too soft-edged - was ruthlessly swept aside. But what replaced it was musically unconvincing. Carmen is a sublime example of French lyricism, and its beauty needs to be respected. By Beito, alas, it wasn’t.

The heroine’s “goodness”, as opposed to her badness, was famously portrayed by Teresa Bergaza at the 1977 Edinburgh Festival  in a performance where her feminism, not her sluttishness, was what mattered. Some people thought her too puritanical for the part, but with Placido Domingo as her Don Jose the combination worked, and her death was a feminist victory.

Viewed in remorseless close-up, there was no doubt about Carmen’s sluttishness in Justina Gringyte’s brassy ENO portrayal. Even Micaela, in Bieto’s hands, became something of a slut as she wobbled round the stage in high-heeled shoes, in total defiance of the tenderness of her music.Yet Eleanor Dennis in this role gave us the best singing of the evening, even when Beito was intent on making her respond with triumph when she persuaded Don Jose to return to his mother at the end of Act Three.

Beito’s was, in fact, a Carmen without dramatic contrast. Eric Cutler’s big, bullish Don Jose was a long way from Domingo’s, and sounded merely crude in the Flower Song. Leigh Melrose’s apparently world-famous portrayal of Escamillo, thanks to Beito’s updating, seemed no more than an Al Caponish gangster in Act Two.

Nor was the decor helpful. Lilias Pasta’s tavern was non-existent, and the mountain scene was a car park big enough for five cars to be brought on to the Coliseum stage - a triumph of sorts. In Act One, shorn of its lyricism by one of Beito’s scenes of public urination, the Spanish flag was made to symbolise the barracks and cigarette factory. Spoken dialogue, perhaps fortunately in the circumstances, was in short supply. The English translation, for once all too audible, was crude.

Yet the final act was an unexpected success. The excellent ENO Chorus sang vividly from the front of the stage. The chalk circle within which Carmen and Don Jose brought the opera to its climax, was effective. Richard Armstrong, as he did in the days when he was  Scottish Opera’s expert music director, proved himself a real conductor, even if the orchestral reproduction in Castle Douglas’s nice little cinema, where we heard it, sounded far too loud.

Operatic streaming has become one of the success stories of modern times, enabling more and more people to experience famous productions from which - for reasons of distance and high ticket prices - they are customarily excluded. Though this Carmen was not one of the better examples of beaming live opera to the masses, it showed what has become possible. Along with DVD, a more subtle format, opera streaming is one of the musical assets of the day.

10 July 2015